Tragédie en musique

The Tragédie lyrique or Tragédie en musique is a genus of French opera of the late 17th and 18th centuries.

As the inventor of Tragédie lyrique can consider Jean -Baptiste Lully, who along with his librettist Philippe Quinault developed this form in the 1670s in a form which remained essentially far into the 18th century. They fed on elements of the ballet de cour, the Pastoral and the machine theater. The performance of a Tragédie lyrique was a spectacle in which many art forms were involved: in addition to the music and poetry, these were the ballet, the costumes, the sets. This magnificent courtly opera genre is deferred to the more bourgeois Drame lyrique in advance of the French Revolution.

The work begins with a French overture, a form which was established by Lully. It consists of a fast middle section, which is lined with solemn Share with dotted rhythms. It follows a prologue with a praise of the reigning king, and often with allusions to the politics of the day, and then five acts.

Towards the end of the 18th century gave way Tragédie lyrique the growing importance of the Opéra Comique and found a successor to the " Seria " genre in the grand opera. Jules Massenet again used the generic name around the turn of the 20th century for its through-composed operas.