L’expérience éphémère d’Ériphyle (Voltaire, 1732): matériaux tangibles et réécritures d’une dramaturgie passagère

Abstract

 The success on stage of Voltaire’s tragedy Sémiramis owes its longevity to an earlier ephemeral artistic experience of fifteen years, the tragedy Ériphyle, whose original dramaturgy and poetic-scenic material Voltaire indirectly reused in his new play. Ériphyle is emblematic of theatrical ephemerality in different aspects. The play definitively disappeared from the Comédie-Française stage after only a few months and a semi-public failure. It has only survived in the form of manuscripts and posthumous editions which reveal two very different versions, one of which never stood the test of the stage. It also transposes numerous allusions to current events and political debates into an ancient and mythological plot. Finally, it uses innovative scenographic and non-verbal processes unequally experienced at the time, being most often still incompatible with the technical conditions of representation.