Throw enough money at opera and this is an art form that can respond with a lavishness no other can match. Louis XIV was certainly not short of cash and the emergence of a national French opera during ...

It's no longer news that live music – and not just classical – has been imperiled as much as most other human enterprises by COVID-19. Back in the day, productions closed, but now cancellations are of ...

Those turned off French baroque opera by English National Opera's dreary recent attempt at Rameau's Castor et Pollux may change their minds after seeing Robert Carsen's production of Lully's Armide, ...

When it comes to gross flattery, nobody outdid the composers who served the court of the Sun King Louis XIV. And nobody outdid Jean-Baptiste Lully , the King’s favourite. "The whole universe praises ...

The Palace of Versailles has always been about artifice. Nothing is quite true, its spectacle invented and reinvented for its age. Ironically, in our days of access and equality, it is probably far ...