Cadmus et Hermione is a tragédie en musique

French lyric tragedy

Tragédie en musique , also known as tragédie lyrique, is a genre of French opera introduced by Jean-Baptiste Lully and used by his followers until the second half of the eighteenth century. Operas in this genre are usually based on stories from Classical mythology or the Italian romantic epics of...

in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

. The French-language libretto is by Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault

Philippe Quinault , French dramatist and librettist, was born in Paris.- Biography :Quinault was educated by the liberality of François Tristan l'Hermite, the author of Marianne. Quinault's first play was produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, when he was only eighteen...

, after Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

’s Metamorphoses. It was first performed on April 27, 1673, by the Paris Opera

Paris Opera

The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...

 at the Jeu de Béquet.

The prologue, in praise of King Louis XIV, represents him as Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 slaying the Python of Delphi. The opera itself concerns the love story of Cadmus

Cadmus

Cadmus or Kadmos , in Greek mythology was a Phoenician prince, the son of king Agenor and queen Telephassa of Tyre and the brother of Phoenix, Cilix and Europa. He was originally sent by his royal parents to seek out and escort his sister Europa back to Tyre after she was abducted from the shores...

, legendary founder and king of Thebes, Greece

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...

, and Hermione (Harmonia

Harmonia (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.-Origins:...

), daughter of Venus

Venus (mythology)

Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

 and Mars

Mars (mythology)

Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...

. Other characters include Pallas Athene, Cupid

Cupid

In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...

, Juno

Juno (mythology)

Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...

, and Jupiter

Jupiter (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....

.

With Cadmus et Hermione, Lully invented the form of the tragédie en musique (also known as tragédie lyrique). From contemporary Venetian

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 opera, Lully incorporated elements of comedy among the servants, elements which he would later avoid, as would subsequent reformers in Italian opera.

A contemporary transcription of the overture by Jean-Henri d’Anglebert remains a possible part of the harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 repertoire.

In early 2008, the French ensemble Le Poème Harmonique

Le Poème Harmonique

Le Poème Harmonique is a musical ensemble founded in 1998 by Vincent Dumestre to recreate and promote early music, in particular that of the 17th century. Using rare instruments such as the theorbo, the lirone, the tiorbino and the arpa tripla, Le Poème Harmonique aims to recapture the poetry of...

staged a performance of the opera in Paris and Rouen, among other places.

Sources

Lois Rosow, "Cadmus et Hermione," Grove Music Online, http://www.grovemusic.com.

Centre de Musique Baroque Versailles website, http://www.cmbv.com.

External links

• Naxos.com