Alceste ou le Triomphe d'Alcide

Alceste is Quinault and Lully’s second tragédie en musique, and features the prologue and five acts which would become standard in French tragédie lyrique. Its first performance at the Académie royale de musique in Paris in 1764 is associated with a famous cabal. Lully had recently acquired the royal privilege of the Opéra and had made numerous enemies who never missed an opportunity to criticise and belittle him. They denounced the libretto for being too freely inspired by Euripides’ play and, worse still, for incorporating comic elements into a genre which they deemed to be too academic. However, the opera’s considerable popularity at Court and countless revivals provided the ultimate seal of approval. Lully gives pride of place to entertainments known as divertissements which feature in each act and provide opportunities for dances and numerous choruses. Alceste also has a special historical association with the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. In the early 1990s, at the dawn of the baroque revival in France, Jean-Claude Malgoire and Jean-Louis Martinoty staged a grand production. Alceste is therefore a sort of cornerstone of the revival of the French baroque repertoire, just like Atys a few years earlier at the Opéra-Comique. In 2006, Jean-Claude Malgoire celebrated 50 years in the music profession and added it once again to his programme of personal favourites, showcasing Véronique Gens as the perfect embodiment of the title role. Alceste had found her voice at last. 

Production Théâtre des Champs-Elysées