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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 centerpiece of the biennial Boston Early Music Festival is always an opera, performed and staged in period style. This year's project was an outstanding production of Jean-Baptiste Lully's ...

First performed in 1679, Bellérophon was among the most popular of Lully's operas in his lifetime. As with many of his works, it transcends the politics that were its immediate impulse. The myth of ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

The last time Persée hacked off Medusa’s snake-riddled head at the Royal Opera House in Versailles, Marie Antoinette was in the audience. That was 1770 and the event was the celebration of her ...