The 'Cabale du Dauphin', Campra, and Italian Comedy: The Courtly Politics of French Musical Patronage around 1700

Beginning in the late 1680s, opposition to the conservative cultural politics of Louis XIV coalesced in an influential court clique around Louis XIV's son, Louis (1661-1711). In contrast to the king's anti-theatrical moralizing and heritage of supporting classicism, the Dauphin and his cabale embraced aspects of the arts that Louis XIV had rejected: the Comedie-Italienne, Italian music, and the operas of Andre Campra. The Dauphin not only supported the Opera and encouraged Louis XIV to reinstitute the Comedie-Italienne, but his cabale also staged entertainments at court in which commedia dell'arte and Italian music featured. The group's support for Campra during the early phase of his operatic career is reflected by three fetes commissioned from him in 1697-8 by nobles seeking to cultivate members of the cabale as political patrons. The Dauphin's importance as a protector of the theatre was publicly acknowledged in the prologue to Campra's Le Carnaval de Venise (1699) and in other works of the period. The activities of the cabale and its extended political clientele thus played a significant role in the French fad for Italian music and comedy of the late 1690s, and demonstrate the influence of courtly politics in the musical life of the era.