GAUDIGUAD

Opera Order

This designation was used to distinguish these plays performed at fairs by amateur actors with simple music that was played by a few musicians, often well-known melodies and farcical, lurid comedy from the elevated performances of the stationary theaters. The vocal interludes were sung by the actors individually or as small ensembles and often at the end as a song by everyone, with everyone reciting a verse and all together singing the chorus. "Vaudeville" later only referred to this peculiar final song, which became part of numerous operas. The term "Vaudeville" describes two things: On the one hand, the level of entertainment at the Comédies en Vaudeville was of secondary importance for the culture and society determined by the ruling nobility in view of the high demands made by the ruling nobility on performers, performances, music and venue, i.e. entertainment in colloquial terms of the lowest drawer. On the other hand, the venue was on a public square in the city and thus not only outside the stationary theaters, but also below the structural and equipment level of their stages. It remains to be asked whether the title "Vaudeville" was chosen by the authors and actors of these comedies in a cheeky mood themselves or was given by the nobility to devalue this scene.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Comédie en Vaudeville received special appreciation in North America, for example in New York, where plays of this genre were particularly popular with the bourgeois target group in theaters that were also called "Vaudeville" in their name. The Comédie en Vaudeville owes this North American appreciation to its importation by European, not least English and French immigrants, to the independence of the nobility and the emancipation of the bourgeoisie. Numerous stage and television stars such as Mae West (1893 to 1980), Charlie Chaplin (1889 to 1977) and Stan Laurel (1890 to 1965) began their careers in Vaudeville theaters, where they learned their handi-, mouth- and feetcrafts. The actress and singer Mae West wrote and performed Comédies en Vaudeville herself in the 1920s and traveled from stage to stage through North America with a theater company.