Zaïre (play)
Encyclopedia
Zaïre is a five act tragedy
in verse
by Voltaire
. Written in only three weeks, it was given its first public performance on 13 August 1732 by the Comédie française in Paris
. It was a great success with the Paris audiences and marked a turning away from tragedies caused by a fatal flaw in the protagonist's character to ones based on pathos
. The tragic fate of its heroine is caused not through any fault of her own, but by the jealousy of her Muslim
lover and the intolerance of her fellow Christian
s. Zaïre was notably revived in 1874 with Sarah Bernhardt
in the title role, and it was the only one of Voltaire's plays to be performed by the Comédie française during the 20th century The play was widely performed in Britain well into the 19th century in an English adaptation by Aaron Hill and was the inspiration for at least thirteen opera
s.
. However, the plot and characters are largely fiction. The historical characters alluded to, members of the Lusignan and Châtillon
families, were related to events of the Crusades
but not alive at the time of Louis IX. Although, some Anglophone writers, most notably Aaron Hill and Thomas Lounsbury
, have tended to emphasise the plot similarities between Zaïre and Shakespeare's Othello
, the resemblance is only superficial.
Voltaire's play tells the story of Zaïre (Zara), a Christian slave who had been captured as a baby when Cesarea was sacked by the Muslim armies. She and another captured Christian child, Nérestan, were raised in the palace of Orosmane (Osman), the Sultan of Jerusalem. The play opens two years after Nérestan had been granted permission by Osman to return to France to raise a ransom for the other Christian slaves. In his absence, Zaïre and the Sultan have fallen in love. Nérestan returns with the ransom on their wedding day. Although Zaïre does not wish to be released herself, she escorts the elderly Christian prisoner, Lusignan, to the camp of Nérestan and his knights. Lusignan, a descendant of the Christian princes of Jerusalem, recognizes the cross that had been given to her as a baby and realizes that she and Nérestan are his lost children. Her brother and father are now horrified at the idea that she will marry a Muslim and adopt his religion. They make her promise to be baptized
that night and keep it secret from her future husband until the knights and the freed slaves have departed. Orosmane, already suspicious that Zaïre has asked him to delay their wedding, intercepts a letter from Nérestan with instructions for meeting him and the priest for her baptism. The Sultan believes that she is planning an assignation with her lover and goes to the appointed place himself. He has Nérestan seized and stabs Zaïre to death with his dagger. When he learns the truth, he is overcome with remorse and commits suicide with the same dagger.
In addition to the chief protagonists, the other characters in the play are: Fatime, (Fatima) a slave girl and friend to Zaïre; Châtillon, a French knight; Corasmin and Mélédor, officers of the Sultan; and an un-named slave. Several writers have noted Voltaire's personal affinity with the character of Zaïre's father Lusignan, who like Voltaire had suffered imprisonment and exile. Voltaire played the role himself when Zaïre was revived in Madame de Fontaine-Martel's private theatre shortly after its premiere run in Paris, and continued to play it in many private performances over the years. One contemporary account of his portrayal of the character described it as having an "intensity bordering on frenzy". Voltaire's secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, recalled:
Disappointed with the relative failure of his tragedy, Eriphyle, in March 1732, Voltaire began writing Zaïre in response to critics who had reproached him for not having love stories as the centrepieces of his plays. He completed Zaïre in three weeks, and it premiered on 13 August 1732 performed by the Comédie française at the Théâtre de la rue des Fossés Saint-Germain. The original actors in the play were Quinault-Dufresne
as Orosmane, Charles-François Grandval
as Nérestan, Pierre-Claude Sarrazin as Lusignan, and Jeanne-Catherine Gaussin as Zaïre. Its reception on the opening night was mixed, but once Voltaire made slight revisions to the play and the cast settled into their roles, it became a great success and was performed 31 times that year alone. Voltaire was also invited to the French court for six weeks where the play was performed before King Louis XV
and the Queen consort. Zaïre went on to become one of the most popular of Voltaire's stage works in France. It was notably revived in 1874 with Sarah Bernhardt
in the title role, and it was the only one of Voltaire's plays to be performed by the Comédie française during the 20th century. For Voltaire himself, the play was a turning point. Now convinced of the possibilities of dramas with a central love story, he began his Adélaïde du Guesclin with a plot even more dominated by love than Zaïre had been. His later plays, Alzire (1736) and Tancrède (1760) likewise feature passionate lovers. Zaïre also marked a turning away from tragedies caused by a fatal flaw in the protagonist's character to ones based on pathos
. The tragic fate of its heroine is caused not through any fault of her own, but by the jealousy of her Muslim
lover and the intolerance of her fellow Christian
s. The published version of Zaïre contains two lengthy dedications by Voltaire. The first is to Everard Fawkener
who had befriended Voltaire during his exile in England and the second to Jeanne-Catherine Gaussin, to whom Voltaire attributed much of the play's success.
Zaïre was soon translated into English by Aaron Hill as Zara: A Tragedy. Following its successful run at London's Drury Lane Theatre
in 1736, Zara became the most frequently staged English adaptation of a Voltaire play. Famous English actresses who have played the title role include Susannah Maria Cibber, who made her stage debut in the 1736 Drury Lane production, Sarah Siddons
, and Elizabeth Younge
. The first known professional performance of the play in the American Colonies
was in Philadelphia on 26 December 1768, performed by the Hallam Company using the Aaron Hill version. The company took the play to New York City
in 1769 and after the end of the Revolutionary War
sporadically revived it there and in Philadelphia. The first professional performances after the hostilities ended were given in Baltimore
in April 1782 by the Thomas Wall
Company. Although the professional theatres were closed during the War, the play proved popular with the British Army. General Burgoyne
, himself a playwright, produced Zara with military actors in British-occupied Boston
in 1775 and four times in occupied New York between 1780 and 1781.
Zaïre has been the inspiration for at least thirteen opera
s. One of the earliest operatic adaptations was Peter Winter
's Zaire which premiered in 1805 at The King's Theatre
in London with the famous Italian contralto
, Giuseppina Grassini
, in the title role. Bellini
's 1829 Zaira
, also based on the play, was expressly written for the inauguration of the Teatro Regio di Parma. A failure at its premiere, it has rarely been performed since. Johann Andreas Schachtner's libretto
for Mozart's unfinished opera Zaïde
, was directly based on a 1778 singspiel
, The Seraglio, or The Unexpected Reunion of Father, Daughter and Son in Slavery. However, both appear to have been significantly influenced by the plot and themes of Zaïre which had been performed in Salzburg
as late as 1777.
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
in verse
Verse drama and dramatic verse
Verse drama is any drama written as verse to be spoken; another possible general term is poetic drama. For a very long period, verse drama was the dominant form of drama in Europe...
by Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. Written in only three weeks, it was given its first public performance on 13 August 1732 by the Comédie française in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. It was a great success with the Paris audiences and marked a turning away from tragedies caused by a fatal flaw in the protagonist's character to ones based on pathos
Pathos
Pathos represents an appeal to the audience's emotions. Pathos is a communication technique used most often in rhetoric , and in literature, film and other narrative art....
. The tragic fate of its heroine is caused not through any fault of her own, but by the jealousy of her Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
lover and the intolerance of her fellow Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. Zaïre was notably revived in 1874 with Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
in the title role, and it was the only one of Voltaire's plays to be performed by the Comédie française during the 20th century The play was widely performed in Britain well into the 19th century in an English adaptation by Aaron Hill and was the inspiration for at least thirteen opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s.
Plot, characters, and themes
Zaïre was the first successful French tragedy to include French characters. Voltaire ostensibly set the play in the "Epoch of Saint Louis"Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
. However, the plot and characters are largely fiction. The historical characters alluded to, members of the Lusignan and Châtillon
House of Châtillon
The House of Châtillon was a notable French family, with origins in the 9th century and surviving until 1762. The name comes from a county in Champagne, with its capital in Châtillon-sur-Marne and branches in Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, Blois, Penthièvre, Chartres, etc.The counts of Châtillon added to...
families, were related to events of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
but not alive at the time of Louis IX. Although, some Anglophone writers, most notably Aaron Hill and Thomas Lounsbury
Thomas Lounsbury
Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury was an American literary historian and critic, born in Ovid, New York, January 1, 1838. He graduated at Yale in 1859 and subsequently received honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard, Lafayette, Princeton, and Aberdeen...
, have tended to emphasise the plot similarities between Zaïre and Shakespeare's Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
, the resemblance is only superficial.
Voltaire's play tells the story of Zaïre (Zara), a Christian slave who had been captured as a baby when Cesarea was sacked by the Muslim armies. She and another captured Christian child, Nérestan, were raised in the palace of Orosmane (Osman), the Sultan of Jerusalem. The play opens two years after Nérestan had been granted permission by Osman to return to France to raise a ransom for the other Christian slaves. In his absence, Zaïre and the Sultan have fallen in love. Nérestan returns with the ransom on their wedding day. Although Zaïre does not wish to be released herself, she escorts the elderly Christian prisoner, Lusignan, to the camp of Nérestan and his knights. Lusignan, a descendant of the Christian princes of Jerusalem, recognizes the cross that had been given to her as a baby and realizes that she and Nérestan are his lost children. Her brother and father are now horrified at the idea that she will marry a Muslim and adopt his religion. They make her promise to be baptized
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
that night and keep it secret from her future husband until the knights and the freed slaves have departed. Orosmane, already suspicious that Zaïre has asked him to delay their wedding, intercepts a letter from Nérestan with instructions for meeting him and the priest for her baptism. The Sultan believes that she is planning an assignation with her lover and goes to the appointed place himself. He has Nérestan seized and stabs Zaïre to death with his dagger. When he learns the truth, he is overcome with remorse and commits suicide with the same dagger.
In addition to the chief protagonists, the other characters in the play are: Fatime, (Fatima) a slave girl and friend to Zaïre; Châtillon, a French knight; Corasmin and Mélédor, officers of the Sultan; and an un-named slave. Several writers have noted Voltaire's personal affinity with the character of Zaïre's father Lusignan, who like Voltaire had suffered imprisonment and exile. Voltaire played the role himself when Zaïre was revived in Madame de Fontaine-Martel's private theatre shortly after its premiere run in Paris, and continued to play it in many private performances over the years. One contemporary account of his portrayal of the character described it as having an "intensity bordering on frenzy". Voltaire's secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, recalled:
"One day Zaïre was acted in his house, and he was Lusignan. At the moment of recognition [of his daughter], he burst into such a flood of tears that he forgot his part, and the prompter, who was weeping also, could not give him the reply. On this, he composed, on the spot, half a dozen verses, quite new, and very fine."
Background and performance history
Quinault-Dufresne
Abraham-Alexis Quinault, called Quinault-Dufresne, was a French actor, born in Verdun 9 September 1693, died in Paris 12 February 1767. He was a member of the Quinault family of actors....
as Orosmane, Charles-François Grandval
Charles-François Racot de Grandval
Charles-François Racot de Grandval was a controversial French actor and playwright. He was born on October 23, 1710 and died September 23, 1784. He is an assumed author of .-External links:* on...
as Nérestan, Pierre-Claude Sarrazin as Lusignan, and Jeanne-Catherine Gaussin as Zaïre. Its reception on the opening night was mixed, but once Voltaire made slight revisions to the play and the cast settled into their roles, it became a great success and was performed 31 times that year alone. Voltaire was also invited to the French court for six weeks where the play was performed before King Louis XV
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
and the Queen consort. Zaïre went on to become one of the most popular of Voltaire's stage works in France. It was notably revived in 1874 with Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
in the title role, and it was the only one of Voltaire's plays to be performed by the Comédie française during the 20th century. For Voltaire himself, the play was a turning point. Now convinced of the possibilities of dramas with a central love story, he began his Adélaïde du Guesclin with a plot even more dominated by love than Zaïre had been. His later plays, Alzire (1736) and Tancrède (1760) likewise feature passionate lovers. Zaïre also marked a turning away from tragedies caused by a fatal flaw in the protagonist's character to ones based on pathos
Pathos
Pathos represents an appeal to the audience's emotions. Pathos is a communication technique used most often in rhetoric , and in literature, film and other narrative art....
. The tragic fate of its heroine is caused not through any fault of her own, but by the jealousy of her Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
lover and the intolerance of her fellow Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s. The published version of Zaïre contains two lengthy dedications by Voltaire. The first is to Everard Fawkener
Everard Fawkener
Sir Everard Fawkener was an English merchant and diplomat.Fawkener was born into a family of silk merchants. His father, William was a leading member of the Levant Company. Everard was sent out to Aleppo in 1716 and remained there until 1725...
who had befriended Voltaire during his exile in England and the second to Jeanne-Catherine Gaussin, to whom Voltaire attributed much of the play's success.
Zaïre was soon translated into English by Aaron Hill as Zara: A Tragedy. Following its successful run at London's Drury Lane Theatre
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1736, Zara became the most frequently staged English adaptation of a Voltaire play. Famous English actresses who have played the title role include Susannah Maria Cibber, who made her stage debut in the 1736 Drury Lane production, Sarah Siddons
Sarah Siddons
Sarah Siddons was a Welsh actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. She was the elder sister of John Philip Kemble, Charles Kemble, Stephen Kemble, Ann Hatton and Elizabeth Whitlock, and the aunt of Fanny Kemble. She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character,...
, and Elizabeth Younge
Elizabeth Younge
Elizabeth Younge was an English actress who specialized in Shakespearean roles.-Biography:She was born near Old Gravel Lane, Southwark. Little is known about her early life and family background. An Elizabeth Young, daughter of Samuel and Mary Young, was baptized at St Olave's, Southwark, on 14...
. The first known professional performance of the play in the American Colonies
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
was in Philadelphia on 26 December 1768, performed by the Hallam Company using the Aaron Hill version. The company took the play to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1769 and after the end of the Revolutionary War
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
sporadically revived it there and in Philadelphia. The first professional performances after the hostilities ended were given in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
in April 1782 by the Thomas Wall
Thomas Wall
Thomas Wall was the founder of the first permanent theatrical company in Baltimore, Maryland, the Maryland Company of Comedians, active from 1781 to 1785. It was founded, with Adam Lindsay, in spite of a 1774 ban by the Continental Congress on theatrical entertainment. Wall also built the New...
Company. Although the professional theatres were closed during the War, the play proved popular with the British Army. General Burgoyne
John Burgoyne
General John Burgoyne was a British army officer, politician and dramatist. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several battles, mostly notably during the Portugal Campaign of 1762....
, himself a playwright, produced Zara with military actors in British-occupied Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
in 1775 and four times in occupied New York between 1780 and 1781.
Zaïre has been the inspiration for at least thirteen opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s. One of the earliest operatic adaptations was Peter Winter
Peter Winter
Peter Winter was a German opera composer who followed Mozart and preceded Weber, acting as a bridge between the two in the development of German opera....
's Zaire which premiered in 1805 at The King's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
in London with the famous Italian contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, Giuseppina Grassini
Giuseppina Grassini
Giuseppina Maria Camilla Grassini was a noted Italian contralto, and a singing teacher...
, in the title role. Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
's 1829 Zaira
Zaira (opera)
Zaira is a tragedia lirica, or tragic opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini set to a libretto by Felice Romani which was based on Voltaire's 1732 tragedy, Zaïre. The story takes place in the time of the Crusades and the opera's plot involves the heroine, Zaira, struggling between her Christian...
, also based on the play, was expressly written for the inauguration of the Teatro Regio di Parma. A failure at its premiere, it has rarely been performed since. Johann Andreas Schachtner's libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
for Mozart's unfinished opera Zaïde
Zaide
Zaide is an unfinished opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing German opera. One condition required of the composer to join this company was that he should write a...
, was directly based on a 1778 singspiel
Singspiel
A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
, The Seraglio, or The Unexpected Reunion of Father, Daughter and Son in Slavery. However, both appear to have been significantly influenced by the plot and themes of Zaïre which had been performed in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
as late as 1777.
Sources
- Bungener, Laurence Louis Félix, Voltaire and his Times, T. Constable and Co., 1854
- Carlson, Marvin A., Voltaire and the Theatre of the Eighteenth Century, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998. ISBN 0313303029
- Casaglia, Gherardo, "16 Maggio 1829", Almanacco Amadeus, 2005 (accessed 19 May 2010, in Italian).
- Desnoiresterres, Gustave, Voltaire et la société au XVIIIe siècle, Didier et Compagnie, 1867 (in French)
- Gerrard, Christine, Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0198183887
- Gutman, Robert W., Mozart: A Cultural Biography, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001. ISBN 0156011719
- Lounsbury, Thomas R., Shakespeare and Voltaire, D. Nutt, 1902
- North American ReviewNorth American ReviewThe North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese...
, "Influence Of English Literature Upon The French", Vol. 86, No. 179, April 1858 - Pike, Robert E., "Fact and Fiction in Zaïre", Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. 51, No. 2 (June 1936), pp. 436–439
- "Philo", "The Anecdote Gallery: Voltaire", The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol 12, No. 324, 26 July 1828, pp. 62–64
- Porterfield, Jason, Voltaire: Champion of the French Enlightenment, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2005. ISBN 1404204237
- Richards, Jeffrey H., Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic, Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 9780521847469
- Stafford, William C., A History of Music, Constable & Co., 1830
- Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes de M. de Voltaire, Volume 2, Sanson et Compagnie, 1791 (in French)
- Weber, Caroline, "Voltaire's Zaïre: Fantasies of Infidelity, Ideologies of Faith", South Central Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 42–62
External links
- Voltaire's Zaïre, full text in French, with introduction, notes and scene summaries in English
- Zara: A Tragedy, full text of the English translation by Aaron Hill