Fragments of love

Lully’s operas continued to be performed almost a century after his death, a rare occurrence in an era that lived only on novelties and contemporary music. Nevertheless, changes in taste led composers to rework Lully’s works in order to bring them up to date, either by arranging them – new orchestrations in particular – or by reconstructing them. This second option is called “Fragments”: entire passages are taken from several different operas and rearranged with or without dramaturgy in order to present, in the manner of a concert before its time, beautiful passages from the Florentine’s masterpieces. For this program, these “fragments” have successively drawn from Psyché (1671), Atys (1676), Persée (1682) and Armide (1686) to trace, in the manner of a card game, a few feelings of love, moving through a kaleidoscope of real or feigned indifference to the lightness of a Carpe diem.

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Psyché (extraits)
Persée (extraits)
Atys (extraits)
Armide (extraits)