(Fr.; It. burlesca; Ger. Burleske).
A humorous piece involving parody and grotesque exaggeration; the term may be traced to folk poetry and theatre and apparently derived from the late Latin burra (‘trifle’). As a literary term in the 17th century it referred to a grotesque imitation of the dignified or pathetic, and in the early 18th century it was used as a title for musical works in which serious and comic elements were juxtaposed or combined to achieve a grotesque effect. In England the word denotes a dramatic production which ridicules stage conventions, while in 19th- and 20th-century American usage its principal meaning is a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction.
J.G.
Walther (1732) described burlesque music as ‘jocular’ and ‘amusing’
(‘schertzhafft’, ‘kurzweilig’) and referred to ‘burleske Ouvertüren’ as pieces
in which ‘laughable melodies, made up of 5ths and octaves, appear along with
serious melodies’. This probably referred to the comic effects achieved by
composers of Italian opera buffa in the early 18th century, effects that
doubtless helped to set a standard of musical humour for the ‘burlesca’
movements sometimes included in contemporary suites. The example in Bach’s
Partita bwv827, which is called a minuet in Anna
Magdalena’s Notebook (1725), has nothing particularly jocular about it,
although it displays some striking harmonies, as well as a passage in parallel
octaves. J.L. Krebs placed a ‘bourlesca’ between the saraband and the minuets
of his Partita no.2 in B
;
the movement is not a dance, but rather a small-scale sonata form with a few
melodic and harmonic surprises. François Couperin subtitled some of his
harpsichord pieces ‘dans le goût burlesque’; two examples are Le
gaillard-boiteux (ordre no.18) and Les satires (ordre
no.23). Les satires exploits the lower registers of the harpsichord,
using percussive chords and harsh dissonances. L’arlequine (ordre
no.23) surely belongs to the burlesque category, for it is marked ‘Grotesquement’.
‘Burlesque’ is used as a title for some independent characteristic piano pieces, of variable length and with no special formal characteristics (e.g. the fourth of Paderewski’s Humoresques de concert op.14). Schumann planned a set of 12 ‘low-comedy’ Burlesken in 1832 as a companion to his Papillons op.2. Some of them, under different titles, found places in his Albumblätter op.124 and in the third movement of his Sonata op.11. Britten’s Introduction and Rondo alla burlesca for two pianos op.23 no.1 (1940) is playful and humorous; the Introduction is in the manner of a French overture, and the Rondo begins with a march-like accompaniment to a striding and angular theme based on melodic 7ths and 4ths.
The titles of some explicitly comic pieces for various media include the word ‘burlesque’. Leopold Mozart’s Sinfonia burlesca (1760) is scored for two violas and two cellos with an independent bass part for bassoon and violone, a combination whose unusual register accords with the symphony’s name. The last two movements are titled after commedia dell’arte characters: ‘Il signor Pantalone’ and ‘Harlequino’. Méhul’s Ouverture burlesque (1808), for three mirlitons, drum, violin and piano, is almost grotesquely comic in both its scoring and its musical content. Richard Strauss alternated the wickedly humorous with the lyrical in his Burleske for piano and orchestra (1885–6): the piece begins with a timpani solo in galliard rhythm, there is a quotation from Wagner’s Die Walküre, and the piccolo provides shrill and grotesque punctuation. Bartók’s Three Burlesques for piano (1908–11) are witty and full of wry humour; in the third of the set even the rests are used in a jocular manner. Other works that use the word in their titles to evoke a sense of irreverence include Reger’s Sechs Burlesken op.58 for piano duet, Ernst Toch’s Burlesken op.31 for piano, Casella’s Sicilienne et burlesque for flute and piano (1914; arranged for piano, violin and cello, 1917), Bartók’s Scherzo (Burlesque) op.2 for piano and orchestra, Messiaen’s Fantaisie burlesque for piano and Florent Schmitt’s Ronde burlesque for orchestra op.78.
Burlesque was related to and in part derived from Pantomime and may be considered an extension of the introductory section of pantomime with the addition of gags and ‘turns’ such as traditionally accompanied a transformation scene. But whereas pantomime most often took its subject matter from stories familiar to children – fairy tale, nursery rhyme, folk story, familiar fiction or exotic tales – burlesque tended to employ more elevated and serious models: mythology, classical or historical legend (Medea, Ivanhoe), literature, Shakespearean drama and history (Guy Fawkes, Lucrezia Borgia). Among the objects of ridicule were the conventions of serious theatre and melodrama. Burlesques followed the appearance of virtually every major opera, as for example J. Halford’s Faust and Marguerite (1853) after Gounod’s Faust.
Like pantomime, burlesque became a largely seasonal entertainment, appearing in legitimate theatres at Christmas and Easter in place of more serious bills. Occasionally a burlesque appeared as a companion piece to other works. Whereas pantomime entertained all classes and all ages, the burlesque and extravaganza tended to appeal to a relatively educated and sophisticated audience. In both genres dialogue was cast in rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter verse (less often in blank verse). Music was an essential if often a minor feature, consisting chiefly of arrangements of songs and incidental music to underscore the action or for comic effect. In operatic burlesques, numbers were appropriated from the model, with new words and often with humorous touches; additional numbers were interpolated from a variety of familiar sources (such as music hall and minstrel songs). Rarely was there any attempt at musical parody.
The heyday of burlesque began with Lucia Elizabeth Vestris’s production in 1831 of Olympic Revels, or Prometheus and Pandora by James Planché, written with Charles Dance with music by John Barnett. Planché virtually invented this style of burlesque and for a generation he dominated the genre. A master of refined, delicate effect, he deplored the absurdity, inconsistency and broader physical and verbal foolery found in the works of later and lesser dramatists. The appearance of W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911) signalled the last important phase of burlesque. His first dramatic work, Dulcamara, or he Little Duck and the Great Quack (1866), was a successful burlesque on Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Gilbert’s five operatic burlesques (each announced as an Extravaganza) led to the evolution of the genre into the more sophisticated Savoy-style comic opera, characterized by original stories, absurdity regulated by internal consistency, satire in place of parody, the absence of travesty and clowning, close directorial supervision and highly developed musical scores.
Although the works of those such as Planché and Gilbert had literary merit, with sophisticated word-play and current and historical allusions, works of lesser providers seldom seem satisfactory on the printed page. Their success in the theatre may be explained by their eccentric and often lavish staging, with interpolated physical humour and sometimes extraneous displays of skill and spectacle, as distinct from their unsubtle verbal humour, with an emphasis on punning and often inept verse. Although an almost indispensable element of burlesque was the display of attractive women dressed in tights, often in travesty roles, the plays themselves did not normally tend to indecency.
The extravaganza was a special, highly developed species of burlesque. The various genre terms were always applied freely, however, often in combination with such other equivocal terms as Burletta; by the 1860s their use had become arbitrary and capricious.
In the USA, burlesque followed the English form until the 1860s. From the late 1830s burlesques of operas and romantic plays were presented in New York, and the English émigré John Brougham wrote and acted in numerous burlesques from 1842 to 1879. Brougham’s Po-ca-hon-tas (1855, after Longfellow’s narrative poem) is peopled with ‘Salvages’, its dialogue is a string of doubles entendres and its songs were selected from such popular tunes as Widow Machree and Rosin the Bow and Tyrolean melodies. Several minstrel troupes presented such satires; in the 1860s the Kelly & Leon Negro Minstrels performed burlesques of Offenbach (La Belle L.N., Grand Dutch S.) throughout the north-eastern states, and Sanford’s Minstrel Burlesque Opera Troupe advertised a ‘change of programme every night’. From about 1860 burlesque often provided the framework for elaborate spectacles, beginning with those produced in New York by Laura Keene, who employed ballet troupes of women whose costumes exposed their legs; nearly all New York theatres presented shows that relied less for their effect on dramatic elements, wit or satire than on female beauty, and the term ‘burlesque’ gradually shifted in meaning from the ridicule of stage conventions to an emphasis on women in various degrees of undress, with striptease elements prominent by the 1920s. The burlesque was banned in New York in 1937.
ES (V.C. Clinton-Baddeley, W. Green)
FiskeETM
MGG2 (‘Burleske’; M. Struck) [incl. list of instrumental works]
NicollH
T.F. Dillon Croker and S. Tucker, eds.: The Extravaganzas of J.R. Planché, Esq. (Somerset Herald, 1827–1871) (London, 1879)
W. Davenport Adams: A Book of Burlesque (London, 1891)
I. Goldberg, ed.: New and Original Extravaganzas by W.S. Gilbert, Esq. (Boston, 1931)
H. Granville-Barker: ‘Exit Planché – Enter Gilbert’, The Eighteen-Sixties, ed. J. Drinkwater (Cambridge, 1932), 102–48
W.H. Rubsamen: ‘The Ballad Burlesques and Extravaganzas’, MQ, xxxvi (1950), 551–61
A. Green and J. Laurie: Show Biz from Vaude to Video (New York, 1951)
V.C. Clinton-Baddeley: The Burlesque Tradition in the English Theatre after 1660 (London, 1952)
M.R. Booth, ed.: English Plays of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1969–76), v
G. Rowell: The Victorian Theatre, 1792–1914 (Cambridge, 2/1978)
D.B. Wilmeth: Variety Entertainment and Outdoor Amusements: a Reference Guide (Westport, CT, 1982)
I. Landy-Houillon, ed.: Burlesque et formes parodiques dans la littérature et les arts: Le Mans 1986 (Seattle, 1987)
R.C. Allen: Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill, NC, 1991)
ERICH SCHWANDT (1), FREDRIC WOODBRIDGE WILSON (with DEANE L. ROOT) (2, 3)