In the Baroque age, nowhere were more sumptuous balls held than at the court of the French king Louis XIV, and none would have been possible without the comédie-ballets created especially for them by the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the comic writer Molière. In works such as Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac comedy, dance and song were woven into a bewitching and fascinating whole. When Lully turned to opera, his collaboration with Molière came to an end, but in the pasticcio Le Carnaval from 1668 the composer brought together the best scenes from his comédie-ballets. In it, the Italian-born Lully shows he is a master of musical humour, of a wide range of dance forms and of brilliant scenes reminiscent of commedia dell’arte. The Italian ensemble Modo Antiquo with their musical director Federico Maria Sardelli have reconstructed the work for the first time since it was performed in 1675 and now bring this feast of comedy to Vienna.

Concert performance in French and Italian with German surtitles

Introduction to the work 30 minutes before curtain-up