Rebel De Pere En Fils

Opera in all its forms! That might well have been the subtitle of this disc. France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries witnessed many creations for the operatic stage whose quality and di-versity can still amaze us today: tragedies lyriques, ope-ras-ballets, pastorales heroi'ques, comedies lyriques, in-termedes, and so on. Nearly one hundred operas were premiered at the Academie Royale de Musique between 1700 and 1750. But opera was not the sole preroga¬tive of that great Parisian institution, and the problems arising from the performance of large-scale works are sometimes reminiscent of modern budgetary concerns. That being the case, it was also customary to transfer operas to more intimate settings in order to enjoy the latest airs a la mode, which, detached from their ori¬ginal context, took on a quite different meaning and created a new dramaturgy. We know many examples of private concerts featuring extremely varied forces that adapted such works for the Versailles court (the concerts of the Theatre des Petits-Appartements orga-nised by the Marquise de Pompadour or the Concerts de la Reine of Marie Leszczynska, Louis XV's queen)