About the Program
The Sound of Music in Versailles, featuring mezzo-soprano Ambroisine Bré
Christophe Rousset and his Paris-based ensemble Les Talens lyriques have been at the helm of the French Baroque repetoire for three decades. The Sound of Music in Versailles, featuring mezzo-soprano Amboisine Bré, is a tribute to the sound worlds of Louis XIV and XV, where the music of Michel Lambert (c. 1610–1696), Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), and Jean-Phillippe Rameau (1683–1764) flourished in the salon and at the opera.
“Rousset conjures graceful, jubilant and lively performances full of spark and subtlety.”—Limelight Magazine
About Les Talens lyriques
Les Talens Lyriques takes their name from the subtitle of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Les Fêtes d’Hébé (1739). They were formed in 1991 by the harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset, and have since championed a broad vocal andinstrumental repertoire, spanning from early Baroque to the beginnings of Romanticism. Equally at home in the genres of opera, secular madrigals, cantatas, airs de cour, and instrumental orchestral and chamber music, Les Talens lyriques regularly appears in venues such as the Théâtre du Châtelet and Opéra-Comique in Paris and the Opéra Royal de Versailles.
Their rich discography now includes more than 100 recordings on Erato, Fnac Music, Auvidis, Decca, Naïve, Ambroisie, Virgin Classics, Ediciones Singulares (PBZ), Outhere, Château Versailles Spectacles (CVS), and Aparté. The Ensemble also produced the famous soundtrack to Gérard Corbiau’s film Farinelli (1994), which has sold over a million copies.
