Rene-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt

See also: Guilbert

Rene Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt , born the January 22nd 1773 with Nancy where he died the July 27th 1844, is a Régisseur and dramatic author French, inventor of the modern melodrama.

Pixérécourt emigrated with his/her father and entered to the army of Cop, but after only one countryside, it came secretly to Paris, and presented under a supposed name, in various theaters, of the parts which were not accepted. The first work which it could make play is the Forest of Sicily , drama lyric in two acts (1798). The second was Victor or the Child of the forest , melodrama in three acts (1798), which obtained an immense success and was taken again during more than thirty years. Consequently it did not cease working for the theater and gave more than one hundred works.

In 1827, it took the direction of the Op3era Comique, which it left the following year and, in 1832, direction of the Gaîté which it preserved until in 1835, time when the fire of this theater made him lose most of its fortune.

Pixérécourt wrote parts in various kinds, but it succeeds especially in the melodrama. It did not show there a great facility of invention. Its means and its characters, in the many subjects which it covered, are almost always the same ones; they are those of the melodrama. But the skill to lead the intrigue, the surprises of the setting in scene, the dramatic turns of events, the violent situations involved a public impassioned for these kinds of emotions. Its style, readily emphatic, was added to the processes of the kind to charm the spectators, who called it the “Corneille boulevards”.

The melodramas of Pixérécourt are generally only in three acts and do not have the indefinite number of tables of use since. Among those which had the most success, one counts: Câlina or the Child of the mystery (1801); Mines of Poland (1803); Moors of Spain (1804); the Recluse of the black Rock {1806; Ruins of Babylon (1810); the Small Bell ringer or the dark Tower (18) 2): the Dog of Montargis (1814); Christophe Colomb (1815); the Suicide or the Old Sergeant (1816); the Vault of wood or the invisible Witness (1818); Rosebud or the Fisherman of Bassora (1819); the Mount-Savage (1821); Valentine or the Seduction (1821); Ali-Baba or the Forty Robbers (1822); the Death's-head or Ruins of Pompéi (1827); the Plague of Marseilles (1828); Polder or the Torturer of Amsterdam , with Ducange (1828); the Jesuit , with Ducange (1830); the Alley of the widows or Justice in 1773 (1833); Latude or thirty-five years of captivity , in five acts, with Middle-class Anicet (1834); etc

Pixérécourt translated the Memories of Paris (Paris, 1805, 2 vol. in-12) and the Memories of a voyage into Livonie, has Rome and in Naples (Paris, 1806, 4 vol. in-12) of Kotzebue. He wrote: War with the melodramas! (Paris, 1818, in-8); Drafts and Fragments of voyages in France, in Bade, in Switzerland and in Chamouny (Paris, 1843, in-8).

It published its selected Théâtre (Nancy, 1841 - 1842, 4vol. in-8). Enthusiast of the taste of the books, it founded the Société of the French Bibliophiles.

Works

Ali-Baba or the Forty Robbers (1822)
Rosebud or the Fisherman of Bassora (1819)
Câlina or the Child of the mystery (1801)
Christophe Colomb (1815)
Drafts and Fragments of voyages in France, in Bade, in Switzerland and in Chamouny (Paris, 1843, in-8).
War with the melodramas! (Paris, 1818, in-8)
the Vault of wood or the invisible Witness (1818)
the Plague of Marseilles (1828)
the Death's-head or Ruins of Pompéi (1827)
Latude or thirty-five years of captivity , in five acts, with Middle-class Anicet (1834)
the Jesuit , with Ducange (1830)
the Mount-Savage (1821)
the Small Bell ringer or the dark Tower (18) 2): the Dog of Montargis (1814)
the Recluse of the black Rock {1806
the Suicide or the Old Sergeant (1816)
Moors of Spain (1804)
Mines of Poland (1803)
Ruins of Babylon (1810)
the Alley of the widows or Justice in 1773 (1833)
Polder or the Torturer of Amsterdam , with Ducange (1828)
Valentine or the Seduction (1821)

References

W.G. Hartog, Guilbert de Pixerécourt: its life, its melodrama, its technique and its influence, Paris, H. Champion, 1913
Franz Joseph Georg Ferdinand Heel, Guilbert de Pixérécourt. Center Leben und the Seine Werke . Erlangen, Buchdr. von Junge, 1912
Anna Maria Humburg-Linoli, Artigiano teatrale E predicatore: it melodrama di Guilbert de Pixerécourt : s.n., 1986
P.L. Jacob, Guilbert de Pixérécourt , Paris, Bachelin-Deflorenne, 1869
Alexander Lacey, Pixérécourt and the French romantic drama, Toronto, University off Toronto Near, 1928, réimp. 1975

J. Paul Marcoux, Guilbert de Pixerécourt: French melodrama in the early nineteenth century , New York, P. Lang, 1992

Andre Virely, Rene-Charles Guilbert de Pixerécourt (1773-1844) , Paris, Edouard Rahir, 1909

Sources

Gustave Vapereau, universal Dictionary of the literatures , Paris, Hatchet, 1876, p. 1606-07

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