When it comes to gross flattery, nobody outdid the composers who served the court of the Sun King Louis XIV. And nobody outdid Jean-Baptiste Lully , the King’s favourite. "The whole universe praises ...
The Gravity of its day, Jean-Baptiste Lully's opera Phaeton pulled out the stops technologically to tell the story of a man's fall from space. Although it wasn't fully staged at its 1683 premiere, ...
That there was never a dull moment probably owed more to Rousset’s extraordinary if always tasteful animating gift as both conductor and harpsichordist than to the work itself, sensitive to dramatic ...
Jean-Baptiste Lully met a rather sticky end. Quite literally, by his own conducting staff. Lully, it is remembered, loved to compose music that could be danced to. As many conductors did at this time, ...
When it comes to anecdotes about musicians, the one about 17th century French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully certainly ranks among the most bizarre. Lully, who spent much of his career writing music for ...
Throw enough money at opera and this is an art form that can respond with a lavishness no other can match. Louis XIV was certainly not short of cash and the emergence of a national French opera during ...