Lully: Thésée

Boston Early Music Festival Vocal and Chamber Ensembles, O'Dette, Paul, Stubbs, Stephen

CPO 777240

The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) has certainly been rightly recognised by the London Times as "the leading festival of early music", bringing together eminent performers and scholars to enable the highest standards of performance. One of the most important goals is the excavation and performance of unknown baroque operas. Some years ago the cooperation between BEMF and cpo started. The first production in this series was the centrepiece of the 2003 festival: Johann Georg Conradis Ariadne, which received enormous praise from audiences and critics alike and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Opera Recording in 2005. Now the Tragédie lyrique Thésée of Jean Baptiste Lully, the Italian from Florence, who made such an incomparable career at the court of Ludwig the Fourteenth. It is a mature work from 1675, which demonstrates in a fascinating way the greatness of French classicism, in which everything is interconnected and significant and serves a single purpose: to establish under God a kingdom in which a monarch reigns who is the living symbol of unity. Elements of divertissement, i.e. dance, and tragedy merged into a higher unity.

CD

21.06.2007

761203724024