From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Comédie mêlée d'ariettes (comedy mixed with brief arias) is a form of French opéra comique that developed in the mid 18th century following the Guerre des Bouffons dispute over the respective merits of the French and Italian styles, between serious drama and comedy in opera.
The best-known ones are Christoph Willibald Gluck 's La rencontre imprévue, André Ernest Modeste Grétry's Zémire et Azor, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny's Le déserteur and François-André Danican Philidor's Tom Jones. The form is particularly associated with the work of the librettist Louis Anseaume.
[edit] Sources
- The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West (1992), 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5
[edit] See also
