Revival of the opera-ballet Platée.
1745: Louis XV marries his son, the Dauphin Louis, to the Infanta of Spain, Marie-Thérèse. For the festivities surrounding this royal wedding, a new work commissioned from Rameau is performed in the Grande Écurie de Versailles, which has been transformed into a temporary theatre: the lyric comedy Platée. This grand opera buffa, in which the gods play a joke on a frog by making it believe that it is loved by Jupiter, is undoubtedly the most extraordinary musical comedy of 18th-century France – even if the audience at the premiere thought they recognised the ugly little Spanish princess in the croaking heroine!
This extraordinary score establishes inventive and unexpected rhythms, carried by a dazzling orchestra. It offers La Folie its share of Italian virtuosity, while the title role composes a character unique in operatic history. The latter is entrusted to a countertenor who must be prepared to embody... a frog, queen of the marshes.
The infernal trio of Niquet, Shirley and Dino, having avenged Purcell in King Arthur and rejuvenated Boismortier thanks to Don Quichotte, now don their boots to descend into the swamp of Platée and deliver their version, which is as zany as it is ‘historically informed’, as it should be!
This extraordinary score establishes inventive and unexpected rhythms, carried by a dazzling orchestra. It offers La Folie its share of Italian virtuosity, while the title role composes a character unique in operatic history. The latter is entrusted to a countertenor who must be prepared to embody... a frog, queen of the marshes.
The infernal trio of Niquet, Shirley and Dino, having avenged Purcell in King Arthur and rejuvenated Boismortier thanks to Don Quichotte, now don their boots to descend into the swamp of Platée and deliver their version, which is as zany as it is ‘historically informed’, as it should be!
