Bellérophon

Edition Gran Tonante has – in collaboration with Christophe Rousset and his orchestra Les Talens Lyriques – prepared the very first modern Urtext-edition of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s spectacular tragédie-lyrique Bellérophon for the first performance of this piece at the Festival de Beaune in 2010. A recording was released in 2011 on the Aparte label.

The premiere of Bellérophon in Paris 1679 was a triumph for Lully, and many contemporaries called it his masterpiece. Here he uses for the first time a five-part string orchestra to increase the expressivity.

Specially praised were the stage-effects like the devastation of the country by a monstrous Chimera or Bellérophon’s fight with the monster. The score contains several large, magnificent choir-scenes, but equally impressive are the more intimate moments like the love-duet between Bellérophon and Philonoe or the hero’s plaintive “Heureuse mort”.