Title page of 'La Clef des chansonniers', tome 1, 1717 – Google Books

A vaudeville is a French

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetitio ...

born of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its name is lent to the French

theatrical Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

entertainment '' comédie en vaudeville'' of the 19th and 20th century. From these

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

took its name. The earliest vaudeville was the ''vau de vire'', a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

song of the 15th century, named after the valley of

Vire Vire () is a town and a former commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in northwestern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Vire Normandie. Geography The town is located on the river Vire. Much of it ...

. During the 16th century emerged a style in urban France called the ''voix de ville'' (city voice), whose name may have been a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...

on ''vau de vire'', and which was also satirical. The two styles converged and in the 17th and 18th century the term "vaudeville" came to be used for songs satirizing political and court events. In 1717 a collection was published in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

of over 300 vaudevilles, entitled ''La clef des chansonniers, ou recueil des vaudevilles depuis 100 ans et plus

he singers' key, or collection of Vaudevilles from over 100 years He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

', and in 1733 in the same city a club, "Le Caveau", was founded devoted to singing vaudevilles.Ballard, Jean Baptiste Christophe (d. 1750), Lully, Jean Baptiste (1632–1687) & Charpentier, Marc-Antoine (1643–1704). ''La clef des chansonniers: ou, Recueil des vaudevilles depuis cent ans & plus'', Paris: Ballard, 1717.

From these popular but simple airs evolved the '' comédie en vaudeville'', which was itself a precursor of the ''

opéra comique ''Opéra comique'' (; plural: ''opéras comiques'') is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular '' opéras comiques en vaudevilles'' of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a l ...

''. File:Vuadeville 'Bon, bon, bon, que le vin' from 'La Clef des chansonniers', tome 1, 1717 – Google.jpg, "Bon, bon, bon que le vin" File:Vaudeville 'Qu'on apporte bouteille' from 'La Clef des chansonniers', tome 2, 1717 – Google Books.jpg, "Qu'on apporte bouteille"

References

See also