Lully: Ballet Royal de La Naissance de Venus
$35.00
Out of Stock2-4 weeks add to cart
JEAN-BAPISTE LULLY
Lully: Ballet Royal de La Naissance de Venus
Guillaume Andrieux, Samuel Namotte, Deborah Cachet / Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset
[ Aparté / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 23 July 2021
This item is currently out of stock. We expect to be able to supply it to you within 2 - 4 weeks from when you place your order.
Written at the request of Louis XIV in honour of his sisterin- law, Henrietta of England, Le Ballet royal de la naissance de Vénus was performed in 1665 with Henrietta herself as the goddess of love and youth. In twelve entrées, this grandiose spectacle, combining dancing, music and poetry, served the power of the king, while attesting to the magnificence of his court.
Musically very inventive, it shows the culmination of the ballet genre, on which Lully was to draw in creating the tragédie en musique.
To complete the programme, excerpts from Les Amours déguisés (Armida's famous lament "Ah! Rinaldo, e dove sei?"), Psyché, Le Bourgeois gentil homme and Le Carnaval - from the latter, a piece recycled from Les Noces de village, a burlesque aria sung by the boastful village schoolmaster Barbacola, a basso buffo role that Lully wrote for himself.
"Rousset's directorship, while suitably regal, is metrically fluid and pushes soloists and choir to rhetorical and dramatic extremes. Among the solo singers, soprano Deborah Cachet stands out for her fire, intensity and sumptuous timbres." BBC Music Orchestral Choice Oct 2021
