Opéra-Comique

Opéra-Comique, concert and opera theater in Paris. The Opéra-Comique was founded in 1715 by performing groups who entertained spectators at fairs. The performances featured vaudeville parodies of official court operas and of plays by the Comédie Française, the national theater of France. The exclusively French style of opera known as opéra-comique (comic opera) developed from these popular shows. Opéra-comique performances consisted of spoken dialogue alternated with musical numbers. In its present form, the opéra-comique style may be either comic or tragic. It is generally more sophisticated than the lighter French style of performance known as opéra bouffe.

The Opéra-Comique occupies a theater built in 1835 on the same site as two earlier buildings that burned down. The theater building is widely known as the Salle Favart, commemorating 18th-century French writer Charles-Simon Favart, author of many comic operas and director of the Opéra-Comique in the late 1750s. The present theater is listed as a historical monument by the French Ministry of Culture.

The Opéra-Comique’s repertoire has been vast and varied. Operas specially written for the Opéra-Comique include La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment, 1840), by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann, 1880), by French composer Jacques Offenbach. Other productions have included Carmen (1875), by French composer Georges Bizet; Falstaff (1893), by Italian composer Giuseppi Verdi; Così fan tutte (All Women Do So, 1790), by Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Pelléas et Melisande (1902), by French composer Claude Debussy; and Les Troyens (The Trojans, 1856-1859), by French composer Hector Berlioz. The present repertoire includes baroque music, opera, operetta, and ballet.

The Opéra-Comique, owned by the French government until 1990, is now autonomous. Despite its independent status, it still receives just under half of its income in the form of state subsidies.