Le Carnaval Baroque - Versailles Royal Opera house (2025) - Le Carnaval Baroque - Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles (2025)

Description

Revival of the production created at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 2024.

"An original creation, a unique show: at the crossroads of Baroque music and circus arts, this Carnival recounts a day of celebration in Rome. From a picturesque feast to street theater, including a manhunt along the alleyways, singers and acrobats enchant us with dances and popular songs.

In Baroque Rome, Carnival lasted ten days, during which the inhabitants satisfied their appetite for celebration and debauchery before the start of Lent. In a magical and colorful show, Vincent Dumestre and Cécile Roussat recreate this atmosphere of pleasure and passion. Acrobats, jugglers, mimes, and of course singers and instrumentalists traverse the stage to bring to life the spectacles and intrigues of the era, from the palace to the street. The encounter between the singers' voices and the mimes' bodies creates This carnivalesque energy is brought to life: we are taken from a gargantuan banquet to impressive street scenes, then thrust into a trestle stage set to parody Monteverdi and his Lamento della Ninfa. All these episodes unfold to the sound of famous and unpublished 17th-century Italian arias, a repertoire that made the Poème Harmonique famous. Commedia dell'arte and circus arts meet irresistible chaconnes, moresques, and tarantellas. The artists thus revive a formidable popular celebration, exalting the echoes of pagan rituals and the triumph of life over the harshness of existence.

More information is available on the official website of the opera house.