France and theater lovers around the world celebrate, starting this Saturday, the 400th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, Molière, the most popular playwright in the French language.
Known primarily for his comedies, Molière created characters such as “The Bourgeois Gentleman”, “The Miser” or “Tartuffe” who have become part of world literature and popular wisdom, such as Cervantes’ Quixote or William Shakespeare.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was baptized on January 15, 1622 (he would have been born one or two days earlier) in Paris, and died in the same city that raised him on February 17, 1673.
The French capital will be the main venue for the tributes, although Versailles, where he triumphed at the court of his great protector, King Louis XIV, will also honor him.
With the quadricentennial, voices have arisen in France asking for Molière to enter the Pantheon, where the remains of great national personalities lie. An idea defended, among others, by the actor Francis Huster, one of the great interpreters of Molière, or the conservative politician and presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse.
The Elysée Palace rules out that possibility, in a statement sent to AFP in which it recalls that all the figures enthroned in the Parisian mausoleum are “after the Age of Enlightenment and the Revolution” of 1789.
In the heart of Paris
The celebrations will take place in the places that marked the career of the actor, director and author, beginning with his “home”, the French Comedy, which was created seven years after his death to house his theater company.
Until July, the actors of the French Comedy will exclusively perform works by the playwright, starting with “Tartuffe or the Hypocrite” from January 15, in an original and uncensored version, based on the work of the great current biographer of Molière, Georges Forestier.
Like every January 15, the actors will gather around a bust of the playwright placed solemnly on stage, and will recite a replica of his works.
This ceremony, after the interpretation of Tartufo, will be broadcast live in movie theaters, which also participate in the tributes with the transmission of works such as “The Imaginary Sick”.
Molière was born and lived most of his life two steps away from what would become the French Comedy. The royal court was still located in the heart of Paris when he began his theatrical career.
“Molière is in the air, everywhere,” Dominique Blanc, one of the most admired actresses of the French Comedy troupe, explains to AFP, assuring that she has a “relationship of camaraderie” with the author of ” The ridiculous precious ones”.
Another well-known theater and film actor, Denis Podalydès, says he is not “superstitious” about the presence of Molière’s spirit in the house. “It sleeps in the books until you play it, and that’s when it comes to life,” he says.
In Versailles, which houses its own opera house, the “comedies-ballets” that Molière created in complicity with the baroque composer Lully will return to the stage. The palace will also host an exhibition starting this Saturday.
Molière triumphed in Paris, but before that he had to travel for many years through the French provinces, in the special in the south of the country.
A bust will be inaugurated this Saturday in the city of Pézenas, whose historic center will be the stage for the performance of excerpts from his comedies, or evocations of his life.
There will also be exhibitions on the costumes used by Molière’s company, or on his relationship with music, at the Paris Opera.
Outside of France numerous colloquiums will be held. In the United States, the universities of Yale and New York will pay tribute to him. The prestigious Library of America collection also puts out for sale on January 18 two volumes with all of Molière’s work, in Richard Wilbury’s classic English translation.
In Europe, festivals with works by Molière are held in Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, according to the site moliere2022.org.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx