About This Item
It was on July 18, 1668 that Moliere successfully performed George Dandin ou le mari confundu, a play mixed with a sung pastoral, for InchLe Grand Divertissement Royal de VersaillesInch offered by Louis XIV to his Court, as a celebration of the Peace of Aachen. This amusing story of a rich peasant who purchases a young noble girl includes interludes set to the splendid music of Lully. The same year sees the promising meeting between Lully and Quinault together they write for King La Grotte de Versailles, in which Louis is glorified, and dances in person the role of a nymph. These two works, symbolic of the creative vigor of the early days of Versailles, and of the artistic appetite of a thirty-year-old Sovereign, are brought back to life thanks to Gaetan Jarry and Marguerite Louise, with incomparable taste tambourines, flutes and musettes are part of the festivities and the trumpets proclaim the glory of Louis. Here we have a scintillating echo of the sumptuous festivities given at Versailles by Louis XIV!
