Lully: the Sun King’s musician

Born in Florence, 1632, with musical and dancing skills, Lully made his way from Italian city life to become first, 'chamber boy' to a princess, and ultimately through many promotions, superintendent of the royal music and music master of the royal family.

Le Roy Soleil by Maurice Leloir

At 20 he had won favour with the teenage Louis XIV, who danced with him in the Ballet royal de la nuit and the same year made Lully royal composer for instrumental music. On the website for Versailles (where else?) you find this neat summary. "Although he was close to Molière for a time, the two fell out and Lully assumed sole control over dramatic music at the royal court. He became director of the Sun King’s Academy of Music, and he is considered the founder of French opera."

There's a detailed docco from BBC on Louis and the founding of ballet here. The narrator is David Bintley, director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet and creator of a new ballet on just this story.

The spectacle was repeated in the 2000 film, The King Dances - the clip here gives an idea of the converted tennis court at Versailles where Lully's operas were to appear! But it's not a realistic portrayal of the 15year old Sun King, whose dress for the ballet is depicted here.)

But back to Lully. Louis became king in 1661 and named Lully superintendent of the royal music and music master of the royal family. (Later he would literally gave him a monopoly of rights to all opera.) Next year, when Lully married the daughter of a famous composer (who was also the mistress of the previous royal composer), he declared himself (falsely) to be "Jean-Baptiste Lully, escuyer [squire], son of Laurent de Lully, gentilhomme Florentin".

Then in 1663 he produced what is widely regarded as the first French opera, Cadmus et Hermione. It introduced what was termed "tragédie en musique", characterized by a focus on dramatic storytelling, French language declamation, and the integration of dance and ballet, moving firmly away from the Italian opera model.

What's so French about it? Two changes. First is the (French) speech music. Lully, and his librettists, insisted on poetry that sounded natural in the French language - and not in the Italian language of Baroque music at the time. And secondly, this work, and all his later ones, were dominated by dance. He and his librettist were rejecting the Italian sound and settings of song, creating faster musical drama without separate arias and driven by dance. (Lots more on Wikipedia here.) Thus began the demand for dance in opera that bedevilled Verdi and Wagner, who had to meet the dance requirements to get their operas into the Paris houses. For a spirited reading of this history, click here!

Cadmus et Hermione

As was usual for Baroque opera, for the story, it went back to the legends. This one is Ovid's version of the love story of Cadmus, founder and king of Thebes, and Hermione, daughter of Venus and Mars. (Lully's opera started with Apollo, unsubtly in honour of the Sun King.)

Our hero had an eventful story before being given Hermione (Harmonia) as a wife. He's the one who slew a dragon and was told by Athena to plant the dragon's teeth. Full details of the legend here. And more critical thinking here.

What stuff for an opera, especially with lots of dancing! Here's the opera's synopsis.

Our production

A landmark for our trip thru Baroque!

This is one of those hens-teeth items, a production in 2008 from the director and company of Le Poème Harmonique. (That's the team that produced our recording of Dido and Aeneas.) Not available in normal commercial places - we found ours on eBay. Review here.

The recording was described here in 2010 as "Most probably the event of the year." Why? "Cadmus et Hermione had been rarely produced or recorded before it was tackled by Le Poème Harmonique, led by Vincent Dumestre (musical direction)... With its reconstructed sets and costumes, machinery, body language and pronunciation, and entirely candle-lit, this production ought to become a landmark in the rediscovery of baroque opera. It will also be a unique opportunity to discover a musical masterpiece fallen in oblivion over the last three centuries."

Lyn, 25/3/25