Jean-Baptiste Lully's Proserpine was composed in 1680 in collaboration with his trusted librettist Philippe Quinault. The first recording on GLOSSA was made in 2006/2007 following stage performances in Paris and Versailles with a first-class group of soloists who were very familiar with the special demands of French Baroque vocal technique. Herve Niquet and his ensemble Le Concert Spirituel gave us a magnificent musical firework display of French baroque opera on the first release, which still ignites today.

On August 15, 1684, the Sun King's war against Emperor Leopold I and King Charles II of Spain reached a temporary end. Louis XIV had secured the advantage, and so several influential gentlemen sought to delight His Majesty with extravagant tributes. One of them was the Marquis de Seignelay, who spent the staggering sum of 100, 000 livres on illuminations, lavish banquets, and a concert at his Ch�teau de Sceaux on a summer evening. In doing so, he sparked a sensation that echoed for years: the Idylle sur la Paix (Idyll on Peace), featuring music by the court composer Lully and poetry by the court poet Racine. The Duke of Richelieu (the great-nephew of the legendary Cardinal) could only remain in second place. He, too, had planned a grand f�te at his estate, with music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier and the unveiling of an equestrian statue of the king. But the devil lurked in the details, and the F�te never came to pass. Now, 340 years later, the Boston Early Music Festival brings this long-lost vision to life.

ARMIDE

When Atys was first performed before the court in 1676, Lully was at the peak of his triumph: his tragedie lyrique became "the King's opera," so highly did the monarch esteem it's quality. The chords unfold to embody human passions and divine wills, guiding the young Atys's romantic impulses and the wounded fury of the goddess Cybele. With Atys, Lully establishes love as the central thread of the drama, weaving around this sovereign passion a tale where the impulses of the heart, celestial jealousies, and human flaws intertwine to seal the fate of the heroes. Leonardo Garcia-Alarcon conducts this new version with exquisite finesse, elevating Lully's music to carry souls into an enchanting dream.

In 1674, Lully and Quinault unveiled a new collaboration: Alceste, a tragedie en musique combining the dramatic power of the Greek myth from which it was inspired with the musical richness of the French Baroque. Despite criticism from the rivals of Lully and Quinault, this opera seduced the court of Louis XIV, reinforcing the new genre of the tragedie en musique. Stephane Fuget explores a world where love, sacrifice and duty intertwine, supported by sumptuous arias and choruses of unprecedented expressivity, sublimely performed by Les Epopees and the Ch�ur de l'Opera Royal.

"What do you give the king who has everything? Well, you can always heap on the praise. Jean-Baptiste Lully made a career of doing so in the service of the formidable Louis XIV of France, nowhere more so than in "Thésée," a "tragédie en musique."...
And the music, as it needed to be for the purpose, is glorious. So, for the most part, is the performance (recorded in Bremen, Germany, last September), which grew out of a staged production of the work at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2001.
This kind of repertory is chiefly the province of William Christie in Paris these days, but the festival's artistic directors, Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, lead an account worthy to stand beside Mr. Christie's. The work of the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and Chorus is especially fine.
Howard Crook and Laura Pudwell head the cast attractively as Thésée and Medée. The other singers range from more than adequate to excellent."

James R. Oestreich, NEW YORK TIMES

Of all the performances of the Te Deum conducted during Lully's lifetime, history retains only the last, which sealed the composer's death in 1686: it was while beating time that, carried away by his zeal, he pierced his foot with the end of his cane... Ten years earlier, Lully composed this considerable score, for the christening of his own son, thus establishing an "official" genre for a century. Also intended to celebrate the great events of the reign, the grand motet Exaudiat Te Dominus is a dazzling glorification of the King, whose arms God has come to bear. Stephane Fuget, with his ensemble Les epopees, brings to a close this collection devoted to Lully's sumptuous Grands Motets, accompanied by the Pages et Chantres of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles: To the Glory of God and the King!

Classical Music

This is the story of Pha�ton, valiant driver of the Sun's chariot, led here by Vincent Dumestre and Benjamin Lazar, armed with a rich partnership of two decades of Lullyist cooperation. Just like at the time, they will make the Versailles Opera resonate with this production of this flamboyant trag�die lyrique which was first presented in Perm in Russia in 2018. Pha�ton is a trag�die en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Philippe Quinault wrote the French libretto after a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It can be read as an allegorical depiction of the punishment awaiting those mortals who dare to raise themselves as high as the "sun" (i.e. The Sun King). Pha�ton was the first lyric tragedy of Lully and Quinault to receive it's world premiere at the Palace of Versailles, where it was given without stage machinery on or about 6 January 1683. The Paris Opera also performed it at the Th��tre du Palais-Royal (beginning on 27 April), where it was very successful with the general public.

It was on July 18, 1668 that Moliere successfully performed George Dandin ou le mari confundu, a play mixed with a sung pastoral, for “Le Grand Divertissement Royal de Versailles” offered by Louis XIV to his Court, as a celebration of the Peace of Aachen. This amusing story of a rich peasant who purchases a young noble girl includes interludes set to the splendid music of Lully. The same year sees the promising meeting between Lully and Quinault: together they write for King La Grotte de Versailles, in which Louis is glorified, and dances in person the role of a nymph. These two works, symbolic of the creative vigor of the early days of Versailles, and of the artistic appetite of a thirty-year-old Sovereign, are brought back to life thanks to Gaetan Jarry and Marguerite Louise, with incomparable taste: tambourines, flutes and musettes are part of the festivities and the trumpets proclaim the glory of Louis. Here we have a scintillating echo of the sumptuous festivities given at Versailles by Louis XIV!

Although Lully never held any post in the Chapelle du Roi, his influence on the development of the grand motet, so emblematic of the Grand Si�cle, was of decisive importance. He wrote imposing motets celebrating the glory of God and the King for the great ceremonies at court. Of the many royal funerals, that of Queen Marie-Th�r�se in 1683 was among the most grandiose. Lully's Dies ir� and de profundis were sung there. But his most celebrated motet was undoubtedly his Te Deum, which rang out for the first time in 1677 and became the king's favorite. In 1687 Lully directed it once again, but struck his foot violently with the heavy walking stick he used to beat time. The wound became infected and the gangrene gradually spread, causing the surintendant's death on 22 March. Such was the tragic destiny of the man who was capable of conveying the most brilliant glory but also all the anguish of death in the same vein of grandeur. That theatrical grandeur is the characteristic of this version recorded in the Chapelle Royale of the Ch�teau de Versailles. Lully is in the limelight again in 2019, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Acad�mie Royale de Musique (Paris Op�ra), of which he was director from 1672 until his death.

Armide was Lully and Quinault's last tragedie lyrique: undoubtedly Quinault's finest dramatic achievement, and the culmination of the tragedie en musique conceived by Lully, who died the year after it's creation. Never has language appeared so beautiful and tragic in Lully's music, and the drama of this Christian knight falling in love with the sorceress who refuses to kill him was so deeply felt that it remained on stage for a century! Here, Vincent Dumestre passionately conducts Lully's last masterpiece, whose eponymous character, played by the immense Stephanie D'Oustrac, never ceases to bewitch us.

This album was nominated for the 2008 Grammy Award for "Best Opera Recording."

This is Atys, the King's Opera, Lully’s masterpiece, premièred in 1676 before the court. A legendary work in the rediscovery of Grand-Siècle operas, Atys is a paragon of emerging lyric art: it places love at the centre of the plot, and its hero – for the first time in Lully's work – dies on stage, provoking a sumptuous lamentation that could wring tears from the most hardened heart. Lully’s incredible music magnifies Philippe Quinault’s splendid tragic text, creating their first joint masterpiece, an Atys adored by the Sun King. Christophe Rousset offers his vision of a piece that has fascinated him for the past three decades, lending it the sensual colour imbued by the Reinoud Van Mechelen's performance, a miraculous Atys…

Acis et Galatée is acknowledged as one of Lully’s finest masterpieces. This recording from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is conducted by the early music specialist Federico Maria Sardelli, and features tenor Jean-François Lombard and soprano Elena Harsányi in the principal roles. Also available on Dynamic Blu-ray (57971) and DVD (37971).