Meeting with historian Jean-Claude Yon: "Theater in the Age of Balzac"

In the first half of the 19th century, France was a "dramatocracy," a society where theater was at the heart of public life and played a significant role in shaping public opinion. Paris was undoubtedly the capital of this dramatocracy. It was in its numerous theaters, whether official or private, that the abundant repertoire was created, which was then disseminated throughout the provinces and abroad. Like all the great writers of his time, Balzac was tempted by the stage, capable of bringing glory and fortune in a single evening. A talented playwright but also a novelist whose works were adapted without his permission, he did not fail to give theater a prominent place in the Comédie humaine – he whom Francis Ambrière described as the "born spectator."

The goal of this lecture is to outline a panorama of this intense theatrical life that so fascinated Balzac, by evoking the main Parisian theaters (dramatic and lyrical) of his time, their administrative organization, the surveillance to which they were subjected, without forgetting their artistic staff and the spectators who, every evening, came to forget the fatigues of their day by the light of the chandelier.

Jean-Claude Yon is a historian and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE-PSL) where he holds the chair of history of performance in the contemporary era. His publications include biographies of Scribe and Offenbach and Une histoire du théâtre à Paris de la Révolution à la Grande Guerre (A History of Theater in Paris from the Revolution to the Great War).