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Colored Papers
Susan Stoderl

Women Writers Through History |Marie Justine Benoite Favart | Woman of Many Talents

Updated: Oct 22

18th entury portrait
Graphic of Marie Justine Favart

Marie Justine Benoîte Favart (1727-1772) was a notable French operatic singer, actress, playwright, and dancer. In 1745, she married Charles Simon Favart, the prominent dramatist and the director of the Opéra-Comique, and became his creative partner and wife.


Mme. Favart transformed 18th-century, Parisian operatic style into one influenced by the Italian models. Instead of all characters in elaborate period dress, she introduced realistic dress, such as dressing peasants as peasants. She collaborated with her husband, and other authors, on several successful pieces, and one entirely produced on her own, “La fille mal gardée.” 


In 1750, after refusing to live as the mistress of her husband’s patron, Maurice, comte de Saxe, Mme. Favart found herself jailed in a convent. Fortunately, the marshal died, and Mme Favart returned to the Comédie Italienne. She starred there for twenty years and was a great favorite.


In the ten volumes of the works by the Favart couple published in 1763-1772 at Duchesne (Paris), Volume 5 is solely the dramatic works of Marie Justine Favart, including:


1753: Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne, parodie du Devin de village.

1754: La feste d’amour, ou Lucas et Colinette, petite pièce en vers et en un acte,

1757: Les encorcelés, ou Jeannot et Jeannette, parodie des Surprises de l’amour,

1758: La fille mal gardée, ou Le pédant amoureux, parodie de la Provençale,

1760: La fortune au village, parodie d’Églée and

1762: Annette et Lubin, comédie en un acte et en vers.


Marie Justine Favart’s work “Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne” was a parody of Rousseau’s “Le devin du village.” In her parody, she maintained the pastoral theme but added a humorous twist. That was a characteristic of her style and the comic opera genre she helped popularize. In 1768, the 12-year-old Mozart used the same parody in his opera “Bastien und Bastienne.”


Marie Justine Favart is the title character in Jacques Offenbach’s Opéra-Comique “Madame Favart” (1878). 


Like Marie Justine, I started out as an opera singer, and later went into producing opera, then writing librettos. She acted and danced, and I composed the opera that went with the librettos.



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