MOLIÈRE À L’OPÉRA

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Pastorale comique (1667)
01 Entrée des Magiciens / Déesse des appas / O toi, qui peux rendre agréable
02 Chaconne des Magiciens / Ah, qu’il est beau… Qu’il est joli

Jean-Baptiste Lully
La Princesse d’Élide (1664)
03 Quand l’amour à nos yeux

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669)
04 Entrée des Procureurs et des Sergents / La polygamie est un cas pendable
05 Entrée des Matassins / Piglialo sù

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670)
06 Sé que me muero de amor
07 Ay qué locura / Premier Air des Espagnols

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Les Amants magnifiques (1670)
08 Quand je plaisais à tes yeux

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)
Le Sicilien (1667)
09 Ouverture

Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Le Mariage forcé (1664)
10 La, la, la, bonjour

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Psyché (1671)
11 Deh, piangete al pianto mio
12 Entrée de la suite d’Apollon / Le dieu qui nous engage

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Les Amants magnifiques (1670)
13 Menuet
14 Vous chantez sous ces feuillages
15 Ah ! Que sur notre cœur
16 Dormez, beaux yeux

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670)
17 Ballet des Nations / À moi, Monsieur
18 Quels spectacles charmants

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About this CD

With Molière à l’opéra Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins bring their much-admired combination of Baroque musical stylishness and use of the technique of “parlé-chanté”, adding colour and contrast to the sung text, to comédies-ballets composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier during the reign of Louis XIV. The musical and theatrical partnership involving Lully and Molière – they were dubbed “les deux Baptiste” – was one of the most invigorating ever entered into, marrying melody, words, acting and a shared hunger for fame.

The collaboration spanned ten works over a decade from 1661. Although Molière never provided the words for a Lully “opera”, the great dramatist clearly inspired the composer who was ten years his junior, in his later tragédies lyriques, a view upheld by the essayist for this recording, Elizabeth Giuliani.

As well as presenting scenes from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, this new Glossa recording draws on the humorous end of the Molière/Lully partnership in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac as well as more tragic airs from Psyché, by way of the trio grotesque from Charpentier’s score for Le Mariage forcé. In Luanda Siqueira, Jean-François Lombard, Jérôme Billy and Virgile Ancely, Jérôme Correas has brought together a versatile vocal quartet, alive to the daunting and frequently crazy characterizations demanded by Lully and Molière.