Lully: Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier: La Fête de Rueil

The Boston Early Music Festival's new Baroque opera recording returns to the French Baroque with a pair of chamber operas by Lully and Charpentier on the German label CPO (Classic Produktion Osnabrück). GRAMMY Award–winning Musical Directors Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs and Concertmaster Robert Mealy lead the all-star Boston Early Music Festival Vocal and Chamber Ensembles in Lully’s Idylle sur la Paix and Charpentier’s La Fête de Rueil.

Both works were commissioned in 1685 for lavish garden parties planned by French courtiers to celebrate King Louis XIV. Both pieces feature an idyllic utopia where shepherds in the French countryside celebrate a recent truce “given” to Europe by the Sun King. The genius of Charpentier and Lully raises these formal tributes to musical masterpieces where dazzling singing combines with charming dances in a vivid depiction of the people’s desire for peace.