A claque is an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses. Members of a claque are called claqueurs.
A claque is an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses. Members of a claque are called claqueurs.
Hiring people to applaud dramatic performances was common in classical times. For example, when the Emperor Nero acted, he had his performance greeted by an encomium chanted by five thousand of his soldiers. [1]
This inspired the French poet Jean Daurat (1508-1588) to develop the modern claque. Buying a number of tickets for a performance of one of his plays, he gave them away in return for a promise of applause. In 1820 claques underwent serious systematization when an agency in Paris opened to manage and supply claqueurs. [1]
By 1830 the claque had become an institution. The manager of a theatre or opera house could send an order for any number of claqueurs. These usually operated under a chef de claque (leader of applause), who judged where the efforts of the claqueurs were needed and initiated the demonstration of approval. This could take several forms. There would be commissaires ("officers/commissioner") who learned the piece by heart and called the attention of their neighbors to its good points between the acts. Rieurs (laughers) laughed loudly at the jokes. Pleureurs (criers), generally women, feigned tears, by holding their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Chatouilleurs (ticklers) kept the audience in a good humor, while bisseurs (encore-ers) simply clapped and cried "Bis! Bis!" to request encores. [1]
The practice spread to Italy (famously at La Scala, Milan), Vienna, London (Covent Garden) and New York (the Metropolitan Opera). Claques were also used as a form of extortion, as singers were commonly contacted by the chef de claque before their debut and forced to pay a fee in order to avoid being booed.
Richard Wagner withdrew a staging of his opera Tannhäuser from the Parisian operatic repertory after the claque of the Jockey Club derisively interrupted its initial performances [2] [3] in March 1861.
Later Arturo Toscanini and Gustav Mahler discouraged claques, as a part of the development of concert etiquette.
Although the practice mostly died out during the mid- to late-20th century, instances of actors paid to applaud at performances still occasionally appear, most famously with the Bolshoi Ballet. [4]
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Lohengrin, WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and its sequel Lohengrin, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the Knight of the Swan legend.
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti, set to a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard. It was first performed on 11 February 1840 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse.
Applause is primarily a form of ovation or praise expressed by the act of clapping, or striking the palms of the hands together, in order to create noise. Audiences usually applaud after a performance, such as a musical concert, speech, or play, as a sign of enjoyment and approval.
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras. The original productions consisted of spectacular design and stage effects with plots normally based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1860; 'grand opéra' has sometimes been used to denote the Paris Opéra itself.
Charles Lamoureux was a French conductor and violinist.
Tannhäuser is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner. It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work.
Victor Maurel was a French baritone who enjoyed an international reputation in opera. He sang in opera houses in Paris and London, Milan, Moscow, New York, St Petersburg and many other venues. He was particularly associated with the operas of Verdi and created leading characters in the premieres of the composer's final operas, as Iago in Otello (1887) and in the title role of Falstaff (1893). He was also known for his portrayal of Mozart's Don Giovanni, and won Wagner's praise for his performances in Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Der fliegende Holländer. After retiring from the stage he taught singing in Paris, London and New York.
An encore is an additional performance given by performers at the conclusion of a show or concert, usually in response to extended applause from the audience. They are regarded as the most complimentary kind of applause for performers. Multiple encores are not uncommon, and they initially originated spontaneously, when audiences continued to applaud and demand additional performance from the artists after they had left the stage. However, in modern times they are rarely spontaneous and are usually a pre-planned part of the show.
André Cluytens was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. His repertoire extended from Viennese classics through French composers to 20th century works. Although much of his career was spent in France, he was the first French conductor at Bayreuth in 1955; he also conducted The Ring and Parsifal at La Scala.
François Antoine Habeneck was a French classical violinist and conductor.
Concert etiquette refers to a set of social norms observed by those attending musical performances. These norms vary depending upon the type of music performance and can be stringent or informal.
Ernest Van Dyck was a Belgian dramatic tenor who was closely identified with the Wagnerian repertoire.
Johanna Jachmann-Wagner or Johanna Wagner was a mezzo-soprano singer, tragédienne in theatrical drama, and teacher of singing and theatrical performance who won great distinction in Europe during the third quarter of the 19th century. She was a niece of the composer Richard Wagner and was the original performer, and in some respects the inspiration, of the character of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. She was also the original intended performer of Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen, but in the event assumed other roles.
Josef AloysTichatschek, originally Ticháček, was a Bohemian opera singer highly regarded by Richard Wagner. He created the title roles in Wagner's operas Rienzi and Tannhäuser.
Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann was a leading German operatic heldentenor especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. He gave important premieres in France, Germany, England and the United States, and played Siegmund in the first complete production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.
"Music of the Future" is the title of an essay by Richard Wagner, first published in French translation in 1860 as "La musique de l'avenir" and published in the original German in 1861. It was intended to introduce the librettos of Wagner's operas to a French audience at the time when he was hoping to launch in Paris a production of Tannhäuser, and sets out a number of his desiderata for true opera, including the need for 'endless melody'. Wagner deliberately put the title in quotation marks to distance himself from the term; Zukunftsmusik had already been adopted, both by Wagner's enemies, in the 1850s, often as a deliberate misunderstanding of the ideas set out in Wagner's 1849 essay, The Artwork of the Future, and by his supporters, notably Franz Liszt. Wagner's essay seeks to explain why the term is inadequate, or inappropriate, for his approach.
Charles-Louis-Étienne Nuitter was a French librettist, translator, writer and librarian born in Paris, France, on 24 April 1828. He died there on 23 February 1899 after suffering a stroke a few days before.
