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The Training of Actors at the Paris Conservatoire during the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

F. W. J. Hemmings
F. W. J. Hemmings
Affiliation:
F. W. J. Hemmings isEmeritus Professor of French, University of Leicester.
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Extract

The original Ecole royale dramatique, forerunner of the Paris Conservatoire, was opened in 1786, which makes it an institution of truly venerable antiquity compared to our own stripling Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, founded relatively recently, in 1904, by Sir Herbert Tree. Its establishment on the eve of the French Revolution came as the culmination of thirty years of projects, argument and disappointment. The idea appears to have been first mooted by three of the leading actors of the Comédie-Française Lekain, Préville and Bellecourt, who on 4 September 1756 appended their signatures to a ‘Mémoire précis, tendant à constater la nécessité d'établir une Ecole Royale, pour y faire des élèves qui puissent exercer l'art de la déclamation dans le tragique, et s'instruire des moyens qui forment le bon acteur comique.’ In their exordium, the authors drew particular attention to the fact that the provincial theatre companies, which had traditionally formed a reservoir of acting talent for the Comédie-Française, could no longer be relied on to maintain the supply. They offered no explanation why this should be, beyond hinting that the quality of these tributary companies was declining. The real reason for the crisis in recruitment, which was undoubtedly making itself felt during the closing years of Louis XV's reign, can be deduced from the pages of Papil-lon de La Ferté's Journal, beginning with the entry for 28 February 1767, in which he reproduces the gist of a memorandum he submitted at this time to the Due de Duras, one of the Gentilshommes de la Chambre principally concerned with the welfare of the Comédie-Française. It was largely a matter of relative earnings. A good provincial actor could count on an annual income of some 7–8,000 livres; if he were outstanding enough to warrant an order being despatched demanding he should make his début in the capital, he would, rather than try and make ends meet on an income of 1200 livres which was all the Comédie-Française could offer him, as like as not escape abroad. In addition, as La Ferté discovered when, in the summer of 1767, he left on a recruiting drive to the French-speaking provinces of the Netherlands, there was considerable reluctance to take up a position in Paris where, as he reported to Duras on his return, ‘les comediens les plus mediocres que j'ai vus dans mon voyage m'avaient annoncé qu'ils renonceraient plutôt au théâtre, que de venir s'exposer aux cabales des Comédiens Français et aux mauvais traitements que l'on faisait subir aux débutants’ – a reference to the notorious hostility of the permanent actors towards newcomers who might have designs on the parts in which they fancied themselves.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1987 , pp. 241 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1987

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References

Notes

1. The full text of this memorandum can be found in Lassabathie, Théodore, Histoire du Conservatoire Impérial de musique el de déclamation (Paris: Michel Lévy, 1860), pp. 3–8.Google Scholar

2. Under the ancien régime, ‘la province est la pépinière des troupes de la capitale’ (Bonnassies, Jules, La Comédie-Française et les comédiens de province aux XVIIe el XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Léon Willem, 1875), P.47.Google Scholar Bonnassies quotes in support from S. Chappuzeau, Le Théâtre Français (1674), book III, ch. 45: ‘C'est de ces troupes que se fait l'apprentissage de la Comédie; c'est d'ou l'on tire au besoin des acteurs et des actrices qu'on juge les plus capables pour remplir les théatres de Paris.’

3. Papillon de La Ferté, D. P. J., L'Administration des Menus, journal …, ed. Boysse, Ernest (Paris: Ollendorff, 1887), p. 206.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 377 (entry for 17 December 1774).

5. See my ‘Child Actors on the Paris Stage’, Theatre Research International, vol. 12, no. 1 (1987), pp. 12–14.Google Scholar

6. Lemaître, F., Souvenirs, publiés par son fils (Paris: Ollendorff, 1880), p. 46.Google Scholar

7. The full text of these regulations is reproduced in Lacan, Adolphe and Paulmier, Charles, Traité de la législation et de la jurisprudence des théâtres (Paris: Durand, 1853), vol. II, pp. 392–411.Google Scholar It is worth noting that under the July Monarchy a number of offshoots of the Paris Conservatoire took root in the provinces: at Toulouse, (1840)Google Scholar, Marseilles, (1841)Google Scholar, Dijon, (1845)Google Scholar, Nantes, (1846).Google Scholar

8. Petits mémoires d'une stalle d'orchestre (Paris: Jules Lévy), p. 13.Google Scholar

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15. Mounet-Sully claimed to be the first actor to receive this honour (in 1889): ‘mon titre de nomination portait simplement ceci: “Sociétaire de la Comédie-Française. Dix-huit ans de service. Titres exceptionnels.” J'étais done décoré comme comédien.’ (Souvenirs d'un tragédien (Paris: Laffitte, 1917), p. 156.)Google Scholar

16. Bellanger, J., Entre deux spectacles: esquisses théâtrales (Paris: Dentu, 1879), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

17. The story is told by Dr Véron, reputed to have been Rachel's first lover; see his Mémoires d'un bourgeois de Paris (Paris: De Gonet, 1853–1855), vol. IV, p. 199.Google Scholar

18. Bellanger, , op. cit., pp. 32–3.Google Scholar

19. Vandam, , An Englishman in Paris: notes and recollections (London: Chapman & Hall, 1892), vol. I, pp. 212–13.Google Scholar

20. Bernhardt, , op. cit., vol. I, p. 104.Google Scholar

21. Cf. Maurice, Charles, Histoire anecdotique du théâtre (Paris: Plon, 1856), vol. I, pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

22. See Lacan, and Paulmier, , op. cit., vol. I, pp. 135–6 and vol. II, p. 395.Google Scholar

23. Quoted in Brazier, , op. cit., vol. II, p. 224.Google Scholar

24. Jousselin de la Salle, A., Souvenirs sur le Théâtre-Français, 1833–1837 (Paris: Emile-Paul, 1900), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

25. See Aderer, Adolphe, Le Théâtre à côté (Paris: Libraires-Imprimeries Réunis, 1894), pp. 36–8.Google Scholar The term antichambre may suggest that, originally at least, the Tour d'Auvergne and Saint-Aulaire's earlier establishment were intended as preparatory schools, so to speak, for aspirants to the Conservatoire; but they were undoubtedly also frequented by truants from the state institution.

26. Magnier, Pierre, Soixante ans de théâtre (Paris: Nicéa, 1956), pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

27. de Leymaier, L. and Bernheim, A., L'Enseignement dramatique au Conservatoire (Paris, Ollendorff, 1883), p. 57.Google Scholar

28. Souvenirs dramatiques (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1868), vol. I, pp. 182–3.Google Scholar It should be explained that Dumas, having opened his own theatre (the Théâtre Historique) shortly before, was speaking on this occasion as a theatre director, not as a dramatist.

29. Le Naturalisme au théâtre (1881)Google Scholar, in Zola, , Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Cercle du Livre Précieux, 1968), vol. XI, p. 362.Google Scholar