Crossword clues for vaudeville
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Vaudeville \Vaude"ville\, n. [F., fr. Vau-de-vire, a village in Normandy, where Olivier Basselin, at the end of the 14th century, composed such songs.] [Written also vaudevil.]
A kind of song of a lively character, frequently embodying a satire on some person or event, sung to a familiar air in couplets with a refrain; a street song; a topical song.
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A theatrical piece, usually a comedy, the dialogue of which is intermingled with light or satirical songs, set to familiar airs.
The early vaudeville, which is the forerunner of the opera bouffe, was light, graceful, and piquant.
--Johnson's Cyc. a variety show when performed live in a theater (see above); as, to play in vaudeville; a vaudeville actor.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1735, "a country song," especially one for the stage, from French vaudeville (16c.), alteration (by influence of ville "town") of Middle French vaudevire, said to be from (chanson du) Vau de Vire "(song of the) valley of Vire," in the Calvados region of Normandy, first applied to the popular satirical songs of Olivier Basselin, a 15c. poet who lived in Vire. The alternative explanation is that vaudevire derives from Middle French dialectal vauder "to go" + virer "to turn." From the popularity of the songs in France grew a form of theatrical entertainment based on parodies of popular opera and drama, interspersed with songs.\n\nThe Théatre du Vaudeville is rich in parodies, which follow rapidly upon every new piece given at the Opera, or at the Théatre Français. Their parody upon Hamlet is too ludicrous for description, but irresistibly laughable; and the elegaut light ballet of La Colombe Retrouvée [The Dove found again], I saw parodied at the Vaudeville as "La Maison Retrouvée" [The House found again], with a breadth of farce quite beyond the genius of Sadler's Wells. Some of the acting here, particularly that of the men, is exquisite; and the orchestra like all the orchestras in Paris is full and excellent.
["France in 1816," by Lady Morgan]
\nAs a sort of popular stage variety entertainment show suitable for families, from c.1881 in U.S., displaced by movies after c.1914, considered dead from 1932.\nWiktionary
n. 1 (context historical uncountable English) A style of multi-act theatrical entertainment which flourished in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s. 2 (context historical countable English) An entertainment in this style.
WordNet
n. a variety show with songs and comic acts etc. [syn: music hall]
Wikipedia
Vaudéville is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.
A vaudeville is a French satirical poem or song born of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its name is lent to the French theatrical entertainment comédie en vaudeville of the 19th and 20th century. From these vaudeville took its name.
The earliest vaudeville was the vau de vire, a Norman song of the 15th century, named after the valley of Vire. During the 16th century emerged a style in urban France called the voix de ville (city voice), whose name may have been a pun on vau de vire, and which was also satirical. The two styles converged and in the 17th and 18th century the term "vaudeville" came to be used for songs satirizing political and court events.
In 1717 a collection was published in Paris of over 300 vaudevilles, entitled La clef des chansonniers, ou recueil des vaudevilles depuis 100 ans et plus [The singers' key, or collection of Vaudevilles from over 100 years], and in 1733 in the same city a club, "Le Caveau", was founded devoted to singing vaudevilles.
From these popular but simple airs evolved the comédie en vaudeville, which was itself a precursor of the opéra comique.
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s.
Vaudeville may also refer to:
- Vaudeville (song), a type of 17th- and 18th-century French satirical poem
- Vaudeville (album), a 2010 album by D-Sisive
- Vaudeville, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, France
- Vaudéville, a village and commune in the Vosges département, France
- Vaudeville Theatre, a London theatre
Vaudeville is a 2010 album by Canadian rapper D-Sisive. The first single from the album was '"Ray Charles (Looking For a Star)". The album sees D-Sisive experiment with a broader range of styles, including pop influences such as those seen on the single "I Love a Girl".
Usage examples of "vaudeville".
Before long, Materia was playing for local ceilidhs and traveling vaudeville troupes.
Here is pictured a type of Greek work which survives in American vaudeville, where every line may be two-thirds spoken and one-third sung, the entire rendering, musical and elocutionary, depending upon the improvising power and sure instinct of the performer.
Valley Theater, the only stage in the Antelope Valley providing the finest in kinematograph and vaudeville entertainment.
Mario had not so much club feet as more like block feet: not only flat but perfectly square, good for kicking knob-fumbled doors open with but too short to be conventionally employed as feet: together with the lordosis in his lower spine, they force Mario to move in the sort of lurchy half-stumble of a vaudeville inebriate, body tilted way forward as if into a wind, right on the edge of pitching face-first onto the ground, which as a child he did fairly often, whether given a bit of a shove from behind by his older brother Orin or no.
But Materia still had the vaudeville and the picture shows and she was happy as long as she could play.
He remembered rollicking down the hill to Strait Street, well past midnight, singing old vaudeville songs.
Then the mayor introduced the toast of vaudeville, that famous monologuist and comedian, the darling of the Irish, Billy Brady.
Mexico, Brazil, and Poland overdubbed in cheap, sleazy attempts to revive vaudeville, and taped coverage of such stellar live sports events as Demolition Derby, and Bobtail truck races.
Only a remnant is left of the old vaudeville circuits Verey and Lanty knew.
He says Henry by this time is checking out the bill down at his vaudeville house or packing up the film from the movie palace and putting it on the trolley where it will go on the beltline to Buffalo to be replaced by a new film.
In 1919, as their hopes dwindled of making themselves secure for life through Deliverance, and since their Chautauqua tours as well as Hollywood experience had inured them to exhibiting themselves to make a living, far from turning down a vaudeville contract, they sought it.
The Webers doubted that a deaf-blind woman could interest a vaudeville audience, which was rowdier and more intent on entertainment than the education-bent, sober folk who formed the Chautauqua constituency.
The social pressures that attended the vaudeville tour Helen found to be lighter than those of the Chautauqua circuit.
Sabine, assisted by Mariotte and Gasselin, invented various little vaudeville schemes to ascertain the dishes which Madame de Rochefide served to Calyste.
Clem and Jody, two oldtime vaudeville hoofers, cope out as Russian agents whose sole function is to represent the U.