Lully Centuries after the life of Jean-Baptiste Lully, his operas continue to be performed and recorded. Thésée was one of number of successful collaborations between Lully and the librettist Phillipe Quinault. The story of Thésée will be familiar…a boy and girl of royal background love each other. A kingly figure wishes to marry said girl while a devious princess of the magical variety wants to have the boy for herself. Mix in a little potent magic heaped upon the girl, an unsuccessful attempt at stealing away the boy’s love, a timely recognition with a generous reprieve by the kingly figure, and a last minute godly foil with some sour-grapes magic, and there you have it—an adaptation of a section of Ovid’s Metamorphoses through the French baroque lenses of Phillipe Quinault. Set in both then modern-day Versailles and in parts of the mythological beyond, the opera was nothing short of a success. Amadis, one of a few to be based not on a mythological theme but a tale out of medieval chivalry: the story of Amadis of Gaul. Today, Lully is an unquestionably famous figure for many, many reasons. Of the more obvious, the tunefulness of some of his compostions are near the top of the list. Amadis holds the distinction of being the origin of the composer’s most famous air, Amour, que veux-tu de moi. Writer Le Cerf de la Vieville claimed that the air was so popular that every cook in France knew it. https://youtube/watch?v=1lldv2_BckA
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 06:18:25 +0000
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