Jean-Baptiste Lully:

The founder of French Opera

by Gwen Herat

Those who can lap up opera consider Jean-Baptist Lully out of this world for his compositions. He had to be great as he was the composer who founded the French opera. What appeals to me are his ballets both written with Moliere;

Les Amants Magnifiques (1670)
Le bourgeois gentilhomme (1670)

These ballets composed for the court led to a series of comedie-ballets that he wrote in collaboration with the dramatist Moliere using satirical subjects.

But he was so endearing and was able to evolve classical overture that led to Alcidian from 1658 in fugile middle and slow rhythms. All these flourished with the support of the king which otherwise would have earned him a lot of criticism.

The music he wrote and produced at the Academe Royale de Musique finally took him to the founding of the great Paris Opera whereas the Academic was really the first French national opera house where in the future great opera singers such as Maria Callas, dancers and Rudolf Nureyev would be featured.

With this done, Lully really found his call in the theatre and along this love of his, he proceeded to set French text to music with such great sensitivity and flexibility than anyone else had done before.

He abandoned what had become the Italian convention with endless vocal décor and repetitive variations arias. He went further to bestow dramatic interest to choral ensembles (some of which I never enjoyed) but thankfully, increased the stature of orchestra in opera. He drew his subject material from Greek mythology with acts and continued music. This resulted in a genre of entertainment known as the ‘tragedies set to music’ and led to the development into French Opera Seria.’

How did one man do all these combinations while being among the first to use the newly invented oboe?

Simple, because Lully was a violinist, singer, dancer, courtier, stage-manager, director, conductor and a man of business. Lully had extraordinary energy with a disregard for obstacles if there were any which overcame with no difficulty.

All these combined to make Lully perfect and flawless and helped him write the first outstanding minutes'.

Born in Paris in November, 1632, he passed away in March, 1687. Lully's original name was Gilovan Barrista Lulli. The inheritor of an unusual start, arabesque mid-years with a bizarre end was the fate of the Italian-born composer who in the future was to become the founder of the the famous French Opera.

He was taught music by a Franciscan monk because his father who was a poor miller was unable to make his gifted son's dreams come true. As he grew up, he could play the violin and guitar with a beautiful singing voice. The multi talents in the 14-year-old Lully attracted the attention of Chevalier de Guise and took him along to Paris to be a valet to Mademoiselle d'Orleans.

This was an opening for his talents which arose from his habits of entertaining the domestics in the kitchen with an improvised violin which caught the attention of Count de Nogent and Lully found a place in Mademoiselle's private band.

However, due to a misunderstanding between the two that could not have been resolved, Lully quit her service but an influential cousin of hers who happened to be the Dauphine (later King Louise XIV) he was absorbed into his court. Lully who was an excellent dancer shared his talents with his royal master and the two appeared in a ballet in 1653 which was the first of many such things.

Following this, Lully was appointed to the royal band, the famous Vingt-quartre-du-Roi and in 1656 he was commissioned to train 16 especially selected violinists.

This led his band being superior to the king's band. The smitten king lost no time in appointing Lully as the conductor of the King's violins which was the finest musical ensemble at that time.

With royal blessings, he moved fast increasing his power and influence in royal music circles and later as one of the King's secretaries and his most trusted important advisor.

Behind Lully's gentle facade was the shrewd courtier full of ambition, ruthless, determined and arrogant man.

He was crafty, knew when to be obsequious and when to flatter. He had studied the king to the hilt. He was appointed as the officials composer in 1661 and in the following made the official music master of the royal family. He was earning a staggering sum of sterling pound 30,000 year. Along with an avariciousness he did not endear himself to his contemporaries.

To top it all, he received the licence to operate the Academic Royale de Musique with more patents from the king. Lully was able to establish a virtual monopoly in the Parisian theatre that made the others despise him.

The stage work he produced over the theatres in the coming years was the precedence to a new school of opera. May be his arrogance did over-run his ego but his genius made others pay homage to him.

He wrote TE DEUM to celebrate the king's recovery from a serious illness and during its debut performance accidentally stabbed his foot with a sharp-pointed cane that he used for conducting and later developed an abscess and died of contracted gangrene, shortly after blood poisoning.

Among his outstanding Overtures: Cadmus et Hermoine (1673), these (1675), Psyche (1675) and armide et Renaud (1686)

This was Lully's penultimate opera and was produced posthumously. The score was considered to be his finest and spectacular achievement.