Annette et Lubin: Comédie en un acte en vers, mêlée d'ariettes et de vaudevilles by Marie-Justine-Benoîte Favart and Adolphe Benoît Blaise (review)

In a playful dialogue between Marie-Justine-Benoîte Favart (1727–1772) and her co-actor Chanville in the prologue of La fête d'amour, ou Lucas et Colinette, petite pièce en vers et en un acte(1754), the actress-singer reveals to the audience that she had indeed authored the forthcoming stage work. Chanville's utterly astonished reply was meant to ridicule the many audience members who wholeheartedly doubted that a woman could have possibly written a work of such quality. Though Justine Favart is today widely considered the primary author of the six stage works that comprise her musical-dramatic output, she was seldom afforded such recognition in her lifetime. The decision by the editors of the series OPERA: Spektrum des europäischen Musik -theaters in Einzeleditionen to publish a critical edition of her sixth and final work, Annette et Lubin: Comédie en un acte en vers, mêlée d'ariettes et de vaudevilles(1762), emphatically acknowledges her primary role in the creation of these comedies, and may thus be considered an important publication in the history of feminist studies.

Though her role as a dramatist had not been recognized during her lifetime, Justine Favart's impressive reputation as a performer could hardly be questioned. She achieved immediate success in her Parisian debut in the role of Laurence in Les fêtes publiques(1745) after accepting an offer from the playwright and director Charles-Simon Favart (1710–1792) to work at the Opéra Comique. In the following years, she continued to win the favor of Charles-Simon (and the public) primarily in pantomime and ballet roles. In December 1745 Charles-Simon and Justine were married. After 1752, she interpreted numerous lead roles at the Comédie-Italienne, particularly in opéras comiques by Charles-Simon. During the next decade she began writing plays, producing six stage works. As a performer, Justine Favart was widely recognized for her skills in all facets of the theater. Contemporaneous accounts describe her as a graceful dancer and mime, a skilled vocalist lauded for her ability to accurately impersonate specific singers and actresses, including their individual mannerisms, styles of singing, and accents, and for her convincing portrayal of naïve, innocent, ingénue roles.

Since Justine Favart's contributions to French theater have largely been overlooked by modern historians, the current critical edition of one of her works is especially welcome. Annette et Lubinis also a suitable choice for the aims of the OPERA series. The primary goal of this groundbreaking and ambitious project, funded by the Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur in Mainz, is to produce sixteen critical editions of musical-theatrical works that pose specific methodological challenges for editors, all in the hopes that they will serve as models for similar future endeavors. The works chosen for the OPERA series are thus intended to represent a broad range of genres, theatrical forms, and historical periods, and fall into six categories or modules: (1) Musical and Textual Parody, (2) Trans fer and Transformation, (3) Per for mance Practice and Interpretation, (4) Work in Progress, (5) Speaking and Singing, and (6) Beyond Opera (p. vi). From a practical perspective, Justine Favart and Adolphe Benoît Blaise's Annette et Lubinfulfills several of these aims. First, it consists of a collaboratively-authored verse libretto with spoken...