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Feast of Fools Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
... of Fools , generic name for the New Year revels in European cathedrals and collegiate churches, when the minor clergy usurped the functions of their superiors and burlesqued the services of the Church. The practice may have arisen spontaneously, as an outlet for high spirits, or may be an echo of the Roman Saturnalia. It appears to have originated in France in about the 12th century, and from the beginning evidently included some form of crude drama. The proceedings opened with a procession headed by an elected ‘king’—in schools a boy bishop —riding on a...
Feast of Fools
liturgical Drama
Fool Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
... , licensed buffoon of the medieval Feast of Fools , later an important member of the sociétés joyeuses of medieval France, not to be confused with the Court Fool . The traditional costume of the Fool, who was associated with such folk festivals as the morris dance and the mumming play (especially the Wooing Ceremony), was a hood with horns or ass's ears, and sometimes bells, covering the head and shoulders; a parti-coloured jacket and trousers, usually tight fitting; and sometimes a tail. He carried a marotte or bauble, either a replica of a fool...
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the American Musical
...to the musical as they had with most Disney entries in the 1990s, yet the movie was extremely popular in Europe, so the company's stage version was produced in Germany. The Hunchback of Notre Dame . While the Feast of Fools is going on in the streets of Paris, the hunchback Quasimodo (pictured) celebrates far above them in the towers of Notre Dame, wishing he could be part of it all. When his wish comes true, he is humiliated by the crowd. Such potent drama was not diminished because it was an animated film; in many ways animation was ideal for such a...
carnival Reference library
Milla Riggio
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
...which has only scattered records of Shrove Tuesday masquerading (alluded to in Norwich, 1443 ). But it can nonetheless be linked to the season of masquerade balls and plays that began at Christmas and carried through Shrovetide. In its broader sense, carnival can also be linked to the feast of fools or the boy bishop and to warm-weather festivities like May Day or midsummer games and St John's celebrations, as times of licence, revelry, masquerading, often associated with the social inversion that is but part of the carnival story. In the nineteenth...
Liturgical Drama Reference library
The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.)
...from the Feast of Fools , and its use may mark a determined effort by the Church to canalize the irrepressible licence of Christmas merrymaking by incorporating into its own more orderly proceedings a slight element of buffoonery. As long as the play remained within the church it was part of the liturgy, and the actors were priests, choirboys, and perhaps, later on, nuns. The dialogue, entirely in Latin, was chanted, not spoken, and the musical interludes were sung by the choir alone, with no participation by the congregation. By the end of the 13th...
religion and theatre Reference library
Eli Rozik, Eli Rozik, Eli Rozik, Eli Rozik, Eli Rozik, and Eli Rozik
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
... Phèdre . Some biblical and mythological figures were characterized as harbingers of the Christian fate, as Oedipus is made to seem in Corneille 's Oedipe . Eli Rozik Carnivalesque function Using theatre to provide a catharsis of the believers' stress brought on by strict observance of religious precepts has been practised since ancient times in the dramatic burlesque of gods. In Christianity, this carnivalesque function was fulfilled in a variety of feasts of fools . In such anti-rituals, a low-ranking cleric was usually elected to impersonate a...
Gold Diggers of Broadway Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the American Musical
...each one of the Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics) songs into a visual as well as a musical feast. Rogers and the chorines were dressed in outfits made of coins for the optimistic “We're in the Money;” lovers cuddled and kissed in “Pettin' in the Park” until a sudden thunder shower sent the girls scurrying for cover and they were shown changing out of their wet clothes in silhouette; and violin-playing chorus girls formed patterns and even glowed in the dark for “The Shadow Waltz.” The finale was a tribute to war veterans out of a job during...
medieval theatre in Europe Reference library
John Wesley Harris, John Wesley Harris, John Wesley Harris, John Wesley Harris, and John Wesley Harris
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
...of Old Testament material. For example Arnoul Greban wrote a huge Passion play in which only 1,500 lines out of 30,000 dealt with the Old Testament, and those covered only The Creation , The Fall of Man , and The Murder of Abel . Large-scale open-air presentations of vernacular plays seem to have grown up quite quickly during the early fourteenth century, mainly as a result of Pope Clement V instituting the new feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ) in 1311 , although many communities preferred to perform the pieces at Whitsun. The feast of...
Paris Reference library
Virginia Scott, Jan Clarke, W. D. Howarth, and David Bradby
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
...renewal of its privilege, the Parlement denied the brothers the right to play mystères in their newly completed Hôtel de Bourgogne , but awarded them a monopoly of all theatre production. The result was the end of religious drama in Paris. The Confrérie rented its venue to, among others, an amateur brotherhood of sots (fools), the Enfants-sans-Souci. France had a long tradition of parodic and satiric performance, ranging from court entertainments to the extravagances of carnival . Again, Paris was no more nor less important to the development of secular...
Mommerie Reference library
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
...the streets nor the Fêtes des Fous (Feasts of Fools), in which clerics themselves participated wearing monstrous masks or disguised as women, could be suppressed. Mommeries were incorporated into fourteenth-century mystery plays and formed one of their principal attractions. German popular plays contained elements of the mommerie, as did Italian theatrical pantomimes. In England the mummers' plays to this day combine ancient fertility rites, dancing, and broad comedy, the identity of the performers hidden under masks and fantastic human and animal...
Gawain Quick reference
The Grove Book of Operas (2 ed.)
... wife of Bertilak mezzo‐soprano Fool baritone Green Knight/Bertilak de Hautdesert bass Gawain a knight, Arthur' nephew baritone Bishop Baldwin countertenor Guinevere soprano Agravain Gawain' brother bass Ywain Arthur' nephew tenor Bedevere a knight spoken Clerics, offstage chorus Setting King Arthur's Court; Hautdesert; The Green Chapel Act 1 King Arthur's court at Christmas King Arthur and his court are celebrating the Christmas feast; Morgan le Fay and Lady de Hautdesert are plotting against the court. A Fool presents a sequence of riddles, each of which...
Moresca Reference library
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
...(e.g., Nuremberg Schembart , the bakers of Strasbourg) and English Morris dancers (e.g., Oxfordshire Morris dancers) frequently make use of this pattern, taking the dance through city streets at Carnival time, on the feast of Corpus Christi, at Easter, and on May Day. John Taylor , in A Navy of Land Ships ( 1630 ) speaks of capering a “Morisca … of forty miles long” (Baskervill, 1929, p. 302). Supernumeraries such as the Fool, the Maiden (Maide Marian), the Horse (Hobby-Horse), wild men, and giants were part of such cortèges; their function was to clear...
Guild Dances Reference library
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
...of May and thus continuing the tradition of pre-Christian May celebrations, took second place; the feasts of Saint John and of patron saints came third. Another important celebration was the annual guild assembly, which usually began with attendance at Mass and ended with a banquet and a dance at night. All major guild festivals included three types of dance activities: the progressive dances, mainly part of the “running,” in which the uniformly costumed participants moved in a cortège through the streets of their city, accompanied by others dressed as fools,...
Christianity and Dance Reference library
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
...Wycliffite reformer to condemn it as “a feast of words with dancing and ditties,” lacking in any spiritual content (Pimlott, 1978, p. 17). The lower clergy, often as illiterate and superstitious as their peasant parishioners, were known to violate the sanctuary with ribald satires, gambling, lewd songs, and dancing. Their most irreverent behavior was reserved for the Feast of Fools, when they would make mockeries of bishops, cardinals, and even the mass. These burlesques proved resistant to the repeated condemnations of prelates, kings, and popes, from the...
Boris Godunov Quick reference
The Grove Book of Operas (2 ed.)
... opposite). d Entrance of Varlaam and Missail: their song is based on an old epic song Musorgsky had transcribed from the singing of the famous bard Trofim Ryabinin. e ‘Revolutionary’ chorus in da capo form: the middle section based on a song from Balakirev's anthology of 1866. f The False Dmitry's (Pretender's) procession, including Jesuit hymns; Dmitry's proclamation and the crowd's glorification of him (procession music adapted from Salammbô). g The Holy Fool laments the fate of Russia (from the end of Part 4.i, 6e opposite). Boris Godunov is the...
May Night Quick reference
The Grove Book of Operas (2 ed.)
...part to dictate the succession of musical numbers, and wherever possible he drew on authentic folk materials, particularly the collection of Ukrainian folksongs published in 1872 by his St Petersburg Conservatory colleague Alexander Rubets, from which he chose eight songs. With its feast of folksong, May Night was not only a faithful counterpart to its literary prototype. It was also a fulfilment of Gogol's own prophecy – made in 1836 , the year of A Life for the Tsar – that Glinka's example would lead to opera made out of ‘our national life’. A ct 1 A...
Siegfried Quick reference
A Dictionary of Opera Characters (2 ed.)
...tolerate being with him. He picks up the latest sword and smashes it against the anvil. He starts to ask about his mother and Mime tells him that he has been both father and mother to him. Siegfried is not fooled—he knows he does not look like Mime, as animals look like their parents. Siegfried persists with his questions and Mime recounts the story of his birth, showing him the sword fragments in evidence. Siegfried insists Mime must forge a sword from the pieces. With it, Siegfried tells him, he will leave the cave and hopes never to see Mime again. All in...
Roman Empire Reference library
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
...(The Stupid), Bucco (The Fool), Pappus (The Grandfather), and Manducus (The Chewer), a humpbacked character, and possibly one or two others. Titles such as The Fullers, The Transalpine Gauls, Young Friends, The Pimp , and The Brothel give an idea of some of the subjects treated in the farces. The crudity and coarseness of some of the racier titles had an especially great appeal for imperial audiences. The Atellan farces were used as afterpieces following tragedies and comedies and retained their popularity down to the end of the Empire, although by then...
