Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Lully: Alceste

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

It could safely be said that Jean Baptiste Lully, an Italian by birth, invented French opera in 1673 with Cadmus et Hermione, his first tragédie en musique. As recorded recently at the Chateau de Versailles Lully's Cadmus went over the air on this program on Sunday, June 12, 2022.

Alceste, staged in 1674, was the second collaboration between composer Lully and librettist Philippe Quinault. Their partnership brought forth a dozen more French lyric tragedies, the sequence broken only by Lully's unexpected death in 1687. In Alceste, Lully and Quinault built upon the success of Cadmus and expanded upon their concept with a winning combination of airs, recitatives, choruses, dance sequences, and spectacular stage effects. The distinguished French playwright, Racine, and his cabal tried to distract the public with their criticisms in an attempt to ruin the premiere performance, but Parisian theatergoers and especially the Sun King Louis XIV and his court won out. The king praised the new opera and it drew full houses. By royal command it was performed in the courtyard at Versailles. Lully's Alceste held the stage on-and-off for nigh on a century until Gluck's Alceste finally rendered it obsolete.

I last broadcast a historically-informed recording of Alceste way back on Sunday, February 10, 1985. Jean-Claude Malgoire , a pioneer in baroque performance practice, led his own Grande Ecurie ensemble. A younger generation of "period" performers has given us a new rendition of Alceste for the French Aparte record label. Christophe Rousset directs the period instrument players of Les Talens Lyriques and the Chamber Chorus of Namur. This new Alceste was released in 2017 on two compact discs in special limited edition.