Vaudeville

A word serving as an umbrella for several genres of French origin, all of which share a satirical or comic tone. These include:

  1. Vau de Vire, named after a city in Normandy, a rural SONG incorporating the elements of daily life, from the 15th century.
  2. Voix de ville (city voices), a 16th-century urban response to the earlier genre, with more courtly lyrics and simple tunes; much of the music was akin to the dances of the period and influential on the CHANSONS.
  3. The term vaudeville became prevalent in the 17th century, representing simple strophic airs, continuing the traditional concerns with daily matters. The genre was very popular; the tunes were so well known that they were not included in manuscripts.
  4. The comédie en vaudevilles made the vaudeville a theatrical genre in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. These light, often parodic comedies alternated dialogue and pantomime with witty and satirical couplets, generally set to well-known popular AIRS. The style gradually gave way to the OPÉRA-COMIQUE.
  5. The vaudeville final applied one element of the comédie en vaudevilles to comic opera, German and Italian as well as French. In this style, all the characters of a work came onstage at the end and restored order to the proceedings, expressed their feelings, and gave a moral. Composers as early as Jean-Jacques Rosseau and as recent as IGOR STRAVINSKY used the form.
  6. In the 19th century, the musical comedy (separate from opéra-comique) evolved increasingly in the direction of a variety show, whether the continental vaudeville, the English MUSIC HALL, or the American vaudeville and VARIETY SHOW.