Bellérophon

Lully's opera Bellérophon was revived this year in the occasion of the Festival de Beaune. It had been created in 1679 in Paris (Palais Royal) and hadn't been performed since the XVIIIth century.
Some audio samples of the opera (the prologue and the beginning of the second act) are on display here (at the end of the article).

Althought it was not Lully's first opera, it was the first of Lully's opera scores to be printed.
A copy of the original edition by Christophe Ballard can be found at the UNT Digital library.
(The UNT Digital Library is a great ressource for anyone interested in the history of music).

Isis & Atys

A word about two books released recently, the english translation and adaptation of two librettos by Philippe Quinault (1635-1688) : Isis and Atys.
The translator is Frank J. Morlock who also translated many other French plays. All the books are available on Amazon. Have a look at them and you'll be amazed at the authors, the themes, and at the wealth of French plays now available in English thanks to Frank and his publishers.

Lully - 'Bellerophon' World Premiere

Bellérophon (1679), stage decoration by Carlo Vigarani

The world premiere of Lully's Bellerophon will take place in July during the Festival de Beaune, under the baton of Christophe Rousset.

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The author of the libretto was Thomas (de Lisle) Corneille who, in that occasion, learned how hard it was to write an opera, especially an opera for Lully. At that time, Philippe Quinault, Lully's favourite librettist, was in exile because of Madame de Montespan's reaction to their opera Isis. She had got him banned from the court because she thought he had voluntarily ridiculed her by portraying her as the jealous and vindictive Juno.

Lecerf de la Vieville wrote about Corneille's experience : "Lully was constantly driving him to desesperation. For a 500- or 600-verse play, monsieur de Lisle had to write 2000 verses..." Corneille later stated that he'd rather write ten tragedies than an opera.

Actually, Corneille couldn't manage to write the libretto on his own and asked Fontelle and Boileau for their help. It took three authors, time, and lots of arguments with Lully to replace Quinault.

The libretto was good, but, after that difficult experience, and pressured by Lully, the king found wiser to get Quinault back for the next productions.

Bellerophon was performed for the first time at the Palais Royal (Paris), on January 31, 1679, and met with huge success.

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Other Lully related program in Beaune : L'exotisme à la Cour de Louis XIV (Exoticism at the Court of Louis XIV), arias and musics by Lully, Cavalli & Moulinie, performed by Le Poeme Harmonique under Vincent Dumestre.

Philippe Quinault - Publications & News

Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault was a dramatist who composed libretti for Jean-Baptiste Lully's works. Together, they created the French opera, established the genre and led it to its highest expression.
Two books dedicated to Philippe Quinault have been released this year. The first one, by William Brooks in January and the second one by Buford Norman in June.

- BROOKS, William, Philippe Quinault, Dramatist, Oxford, Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Frankfurt am Main / New York / Wien, Peter Lang (Medieval and Early Modern French Studies), 2009, 512 p.
ISBN 9783039115334

- NORMAN Buford, Quinault, librettiste de Lully - Le Poète des Grâces, CMBV-Mardaga, 2009, 383 p.
ISBN 9782870099957
This is the French translation, completed and updated, of Touched by the Graces: The Libretti of Philippe Quinault in the Context of French Classicism), published by Summa Publications, 2001.

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There is also a NEW WEBSITE dedicated to Quinault by Buford Norman. You can find it here, and it's in French.
If you can't read French but are interested in the French Parnassus monument, you'll find a picture of the Quinault medallion by Simon Curé.

The Imaginative World of Ariosto

Engraving by Larmessin after Nicolas Lancret

The Imaginative World of Ariosto
(Arioste imaginaire, Arioste imaginé)
February 26 to May 18, 2009
Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Ariosto first published his Orlando Furioso in Ferrara in 1516, and the epic poem, telling the adventures of Orlando, quickly became an extraordinary source of inspiration for the arts and literature. The exhibition, featuring works from the Renaissance to the 19th century proposes a reflection on the mutual influences of images and text in artistic and literary creation.

Ariosto's work also influenced a lot the 17th &18th-century operatic world. The character and adventures of Orlando inspired various libretti, and composers like Vivaldi (Orlando Finto Pazzo and then Orlando Furioso), Scarlatti, Händel, Lully (Roland). Orlando Furioso's secondary characters became the central characters of some operas : Alcina (Albinoni, Händel), Ginevra principessa di Scozia/Ariodante (Perti, Pollarolo, Sarro, Händel, Wagenseil). Even Rameau's Les Paladins, based on tale by La Fontaine finds its origins in Orlando Furioso (canto 43). For that reason, the exhibition is completed with a musical program.

Concerts
Extracts from :
Händel, Orlando, Alcina, Ariodante
Lully, Roland Furieux,
Vivaldi, Orlando Furioso
Solistes de l'Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra national de Paris :
Les Paladins & Jérôme Correas
Auditorium du Louvre - March 4, 2009
Théâtre de Suresnes Jean Vilar - March 6, 2009
More about the concerts


Filmed operas
Alcina, by Georg Friedrich Händel
Scottish Chamber Orchestra - Raymond Leppard,
Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur - Catherine Brilli,
Cast :Ann Murray, Valerie Masterson, Christiane Eda Pierre, Theresa Berganza, Philip Landridge.
Ina/Antenne 2, 1978, 124 min.
Introduction speech on the theme Ariosto and the baroque opera.
March14, 2009 - 3:00 pm

Orlando Furioso, by Antonio Vivaldi
Orchestre de l’Opéra de San Francisco - Randall Behr,
Cast : Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Kuhlmann, Susan Patterson, Jeffrey Gall, Sandra Walker.
Réal : Brian Large, prod : Arthaus, 1989, 147 min.
March 14, 2009 - 7:00 pm

Les Paladins, by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Les Arts florissants - William Christie,
Opus Arte, 2005, 140 min.
March15, 2009 - 3:00 pm