Jean-Baptiste Lully, 1632-1687
Jean-Baptiste Lully, 1632-1687 Jean-Baptiste Lully, the quintessential French composer and inventor of French opera, was born Giovanni Battista Lulli on November 28, 1632, in Florence, Italy. He was the son of a miller, Lorenzo di Maldo Lulli, and his wife, Caterina del Sera, a miller's daughter. Lully first arrived in France in March of 1646 in the entourage of Roger de Lorraine, the Chevalier de Guise, as a garçon de chambre for De Guise's niece, Mlle. de Montpensier, who had requested that her uncle provide her with someone with whom to practice her Italian language skills.
During his six years in the household of Mlle. de Montpensier, Lully, who was already expert at the guitar and violin, polished his skills as a performer and composer. According to an interview published posthumously in the Mercure galant, Lully insisted that he had "never learned more about music than he had known at the age of 17 but that he had worked all his life to perfect this knowledge." Above all, Lully was known for his artistry as a dancer in the court ballets.
In his 20th year, French politics intruded into Lully's protected world. Mlle. de Montpensier, who had been a leader of the revolutionary Fronde, was exiled to her chateau at St. Fargeau after the defeat of the Frondists in 1652. Lully asked to be released from her service and returned to Paris.
On February 23, 1653, three months after leaving Mlle. de Montpensier's service, Lully danced several parts in Isaac Benserade's Ballet de la nuit at the court of the young King Louis XIV. Apparently Louis was favorably impressed by the young composer, since a few weeks later Lully replaced the Italian Lazarini as "composer of instrumental music for the king." .
Lully began in Louis' service as a composer of ballets de cour (court ballets), in which he danced together with the king and members of the royal court. At first, as his title suggests, Lully was responsible only for instrumental music. However, he rapidly expanded his field of influence and began to take responsibility for entire ballets. Some time before 1656, he also took over responsibility for the string ensemble called the Petits violons, which he transformed into a group widely renowned for their discipline and artistic excellence.
During the 1660s, Lully's influence grew. In 1661, he received French citizenship. In his letters of naturalization Lully re-wrote his own history, changing the spelling of his name from Lulli to Lully and elevating his father to the status of "gentilhomme Florentin"--a Florentine gentleman. In the same year, Lully was appointed "composer of chamber music for the king." The following year, he married Madeleine Lambert, daughter of the composer Michel Lambert. The marriage contract was signed by Louis XIV, his queen and his mother, Anne of Austria. Between 1664 and 1670, Lully collaborated on a series of comédies-ballets with the playwright Molière. These works, which combined comic dialogue with singing and dancing, were a step along the road to a native French opera.
Six Italian operas were performed in Paris between 1645 and 1662 under the aegis of the Italian First Minister Cardinal Mazarin. Despite the Cardinal's support, these operas did not appeal to the French courtiers, who objected to the Italian language of the librettos and the length of the performances. Lully was no more impressed by the Italian operas than his fellows; he is supposed to have said that opera was a peculiarly Italian art form, impossible to realize using the French language. However, when the first French opera, produced by the Académie d'Opéra under a privilege granted to the poet Pierre Perrin, proved to be a success, his interest was piqued.
Lully's influence with the King gave him the leverage to have the privilege transferred to himself. He was prepared to be generous and Perrin was more than willing to cooperate, since his business partners had pocketed the profits and the poet was in debtors' prison. In March of 1672, Lully was officially granted the exclusive right to produce operas in Paris. He later consolidated his control over the lyric stage in Paris through a series of additional patents limiting, for example, the number of musicians permitted to appear in productions outside his Académie Royale de Musique.
For his librettist, Lully chose the poet Philippe Quinault. The first tragédie lyrique, Cadmus et Hermione, with libretto by Quinault and music by Lully, was performed April 27, 1673. The form of the tragédie lyrique, which Lully created with Quinault, remained the dominant form in French opera for a hundred years after Lully's death.
From his acquisition of the privilege until his death in 1687, Lully's attention was focused on the writing and production of his operas. His involvement was not limited to musical composition. He collaborated with his poets in the production of libretti, and even took an interest in the acting and declamation of the performers. His insistence on discipline and high artistic standards in the opera orchestra was legendary.
Between 1673 and 1686, Lully composed 13 tragédies lyriques. After the success of Bellérophon in 1679, Lully contracted with the printing firm of Ballard to publish his operas. He maintained close control over the publishing rights, refusing to allow Ballard to put any of the printed volumes up for sale until they had been inventoried and initialed or stamped by Lully or one of his agents. (An example of such a stamp appears on p. lxij of the UNT volume of Armide.)
In 1681, Lully realized a lifelong dream when he was able to purchase the office of "secretary to the king," which granted him noble rank. He began signing himself "de" Lully, and the title pages of his operas (for example the title page of the Armide volume in the UNT Lully collection) proclaimed him as "Monsieur de Lully, escuyer, conseiller, Secrétaire du Roy, Maison, Couronne de France & de ses Finances, & Sur-Intendant de la Musique de sa Majesté."
Louis' secret marriage to Mme. de Maintenon in 1683 changed the atmosphere of the court. The libertine excesses of the King's youth were discarded in favor of more conservative, almost puritan, behavior. This created a rift between Louis and Lully, who had been one of the king's bosom companions in his wilder days and whose opera libretti espoused a particularly worldly philosophy. [also clergy & conservative professors at the Sorbonne]
On January 8, 1687, Lully conducted a performance of his Te deum to celebrate the king's recovery from an operation. In an excess of enthusiasm, he hit his toe with the tip of the cane that he was using to beat time. The wound developed an abscess, gangrene set in, and the composer died March 22, 1687.