Le Bourgeois gentilhomme Add a review

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (French pronunciation: [lə buʁʒwa ʒɑ̃tijɔm], variously translated as The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Middle-Class Aristocrat or The Would-Be Noble) is a five-act comédie-ballet — a play with music, dance and singing — first performed on 14 October 1670 for the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord. Its text is by Molière, its music by Lully.

Molière's own troupe of actors gave the premiere; choreography was by Pierre Beauchamp, sets were by Carlo Vigarani and costumes by the Chevalier d’Arvieux. Public performances followed at the theatre of the Palais-Royal starting on 23 November 1670.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme satirizes attempts at social climbing and the bourgeois personality, poking fun both at the vulgar, pretentious middle-class and the vain, snobbish aristocracy. The title is meant as an oxymoron: in Molière's France, a gentleman was by definition nobly born, and thus there could be no such thing as a bourgeois gentleman. The play is in prose (except for the ballet openings which are in verse).