For the wedding of Louis XIV, in 1660, Gaspare Vigarani went to France from Italy to build the Salle des Machines, the largest theatre in Europe. It was 226 feet long, only 94 feet of which was occupied by the auditorium. Its stage, 132 feet deep, had a proscenium arch only 32 feet wide. One of Vigarani’s machines, 60 feet deep itself, was used to fly the entire royal family and their attendants on stage for the finale. Vigarani was succeeded by his son, who was in turn followed by the Jean Berains, father and son. The Berains established a distinctly French style of design, emphasizing heavy lines, curves, and encrusted ornamentation. They usually designed only one set for each act but used many machines and special effects. This combination of static scenery and dynamic machinery was to remain in vogue in French opera through the 18th century. After 1682 the influence of the court on public theatre declined. After 1690 the King became so puritanical that plays were no longer encouraged.
In contrast to court opulence was the Comédie-Française, for which a theatre was built in 1689 from a converted tennis court. The stage was equipped for flat wings and shutters, but since scene changes were few, the machinery was minimal. The typical background for tragedies was the palais à volonté (literally “palace to order”), a neutral setting without particularized details. For comedy the typical scene was chambre à quatre portes (“room with four doors”), an informal interior. By 1700 Paris had two types of theatres, epitomized by the Opéra, with its Baroque scenery and machines, and the Comédie-Française, which did not rely on spectacle.
The first true spectacle in a public theatre was the 1755 production of Voltaire’s Orphelin de la Chine (Orphan of China), with its supposedly accurate Chinese scenery and costumes. Subsequently the Comédie-Italienne, permanently performing in Paris, introduced local colour and increased the use of spectacle. Giovanni Nicolò Servandoni, originally a Florentine who lived in Paris from 1724 to 1746, translated Italian styles to French taste. His use of perspective gave the illusion of space without falling back on the obvious geometry that characterized the High Baroque. He took over as director of the Salle de Machines, where his work in its turn influenced the designers of Italy and Germany. At the Opéra, as opposed to public theatres, spectacle was used throughout the 18th century. Its best known designers included the painter François Boucher. And although many famous painters designed settings, there is still no comparison with the works of the Italians of this period. The financial problems of the theatres did much to prevent a forward thrust in French design. Ironically, the most sumptuous spectacle of the latter part of the 18th century occurred in France in 1794, after the Revolution: the National Convention decreed “The Festival of the Supreme Being,” designed by the painter Jacques-Louis David and conducted by the revolutionary government leader Robespierre—Neoclassicism in the service of the Republic.
After the 1760s, theatres were built in the Italian style, with ovoid auditoriums and enlarged stages. By the 1780s, when the standing pit fell into disuse, all of the spectators were finally seated, off the stage. The seated pit was not to become accepted in France until the 19th century.
In Spain during this period, theatre began to decline. Although Italian-style scenery was used occasionally, it was not common until brought from Florence in 1626 by Cosimo Lotti, who staged many outdoor productions on the grounds of the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid. For one, he built a floating stage on a lake, and the special effects included a shipwreck, a water chariot drawn by dolphins, and the destruction of Circé’s palace. This production was lit by 3,000 lanterns, and the spectators watched from gondolas. In 1640 Lotti built a permanent theatre in Madrid, the Coliseo, which probably had the first proscenium arch in Spain. The next decade saw a decline in both court and public theatres. By 1650 the Coliseo was reopened, but its popularity had diminished by 1700. By the late 1600s Spain had lost most of its economic and political power, and its theatre through most of the Baroque was a watered-down version of Italian concepts. Developments in northern Europe
One country outside the Italian influence during this period exhibited an interesting theatre plan. In 1638 Jacob van Campen, an architect, designed a theatre in Amsterdam that had no counterpart elsewhere in Europe. The auditorium was elliptical, with two tiers of boxes on one side opposite a stage facade with open balconies over the sides. The facade itself consisted primarily of pillars with cornices above them, and painted panels, representing different localities rather than a unified setting, were set between the pillars. The whole concept of the panels was probably directly derived from the simultaneous stage of the Middle Ages.
The constantly shifting politics of northern Europe, and particularly of Germany, in the 16th and 17th centuries was the primary cause for the late development of professional theatre in this region. Theatre in Germany owes its impetus to the English troupes that started touring the country in the early 17th century. At first, the English performed in courts, and by 1650 they were traveling across the country regularly. To attract the non-English-speaking audience, the troupes gradually inserted German phrases, speeches, and then whole scenes. As early as 1626, German actors were joining the troupes, and by 1680 English actors had been completely displaced. Because Germany was politically divided and there were no large cities, the troupes had to travel constantly to find new audiences. To attract the disparate spectators, a company might have as many as 100 plays in its repertoire. These conditions combined to make it impossible to rehearse and mount plays with any great professionalism.
Between the mid-17th and the late 18th century the aristocracy ignored public theatre in favour of opera. The first Viennese opera house was built in 1652 by Giovanni Burnacini and is similar to the courtyards of Italian Renaissance palaces in the two levels of its auditorium, framed by a double arcade of rounded arches. Italians played an important part in every aspect of theatre at the imperial court until the late 18th century. The first performance at the Viennese opera house was of an Italian opera.
In the public theatre, the work of the manager Johann Friedrich Schönemann led to the establishment in 1767 of the Hamburg National Theatre, the first noncommercial public theatre, subsidized by a group of rich citizens. This marked the beginning of a movement that gained force during the next decade and can be found even today in East German theatre. The prevailing attitude was that theatre is a cultural institution that, like museums, should be available to all citizens.
This movement toward permanence greatly influenced the evolution of staging in the 18th century. As audiences grew larger, and as cities developed, a troupe was able to reduce the number of plays in a repertoire, and this in turn led to better productions. And as the theatre building grew in size and substance, the chariot-and-pole system of scene shifting was introduced. Interest in historical accuracy of sets and costumes was stimulated by the chivalric plays popular in the 1770s. During the next two decades dramatists were writing plays that relied on complex set pieces, including bridges and walls. Doors and windows were set up between the wings, marking the first development toward the box set—a set representing three walls of a room, the fourth being the plane of the proscenium. Early Russian staging
Russian theatre can be traced back to the pagan rituals of the ancient Slavs, the later Christian festivals, and, in the Middle Ages, the mixed rituals of these two influences. As early as the 10th century there were mummers, called skomorokhi, probably itinerant comedians who performed in small towns and villages. Suffering the same fate as the actors of western Europe during the early Middle Ages, the mummers were the victims of measures taken by the princes as well as the church. Their specialties were trained-animal acts, usually with bears, and puppet shows. The Greek Orthodox Church introduced some morality plays in Russia, but they were limited in scope and number. Since the mass was celebrated in the vernacular, the church did not need the aid of morality plays for the dissemination of its message. At the beginning of the 17th century, the only theatre using a literary text and a trained company was the drama brought from Poland to the Ukraine.