This is how you make the French like opera: You write an opera in honour of Louis XIV after a victory over Burgundy, and kick it off with some nymphs in the Seine river aching and longing for his return from battle. Then you write a sort of Orfeo with a happy ending, courtesy of Euripides (I have a truly awful Euripides/Eumenides joke, which sounds like rubbish coming from anyone but my old theatre history professor). For something dubbed a tragedie-lyrique, there’s certainly enough feel-good material to last you on the ride back to Versailles. That’s Lully’s Alceste in a nutshell.
It’s no surprise that Lully had the monopoly on opera in late-17th century France, particularly since he was responsible for cramming the art form down his (adopted) countrymen’s throats. Particularly, he knew how to finesse it in the same way that some people can get their bosses to do amazing things by making them think that it was their idea all along; and it starts here with the prologues. Though the Italians certainly weren’t above a little relevance to their day and age, it was truly overt in France, prologues referring to the reigning monarch by name, stroking their ego, singing their praises (you can see from whence that turn of phrase came).
Speaking of French and Italian (which is basically what Lully was–a Parisian by way of Florence–the birthplace of opera), Alceste may be the best example of the fusion between French and Italian style–a way of slipping in some Cavalli and late Monteverdi while making it distinctly gallic. The recits particularly fuse the two cultures quite nicely.
There’s also a sophistication of music, and we can see counterpoint come into its own as early as the overture. There are distinct conversations between the instruments and, later, the voices. The theatre in Paris, as much of a social realm as it was, rewarded the close listeners while still amusing the casual ears. And we can thank Lully for the beginnings of the French overture, particularly those dotted rhythms which make even listening to the opera a regal experience. It’s a trend that, as I’m discovering in Huguenots rehearsals, did not die with the French monarchy.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to take off my powdered wig.
