Born: Florence, November 28, 1632
Died: Paris, March 22, 1687
Italian-born French composer, who
helped establish opera in France.
Born in Florence, Italy, on November
28, 1632, and originally named Giovanni Battista Lulli, he went to France at the age of
14, entering the service of Louis XIV in 1652 as a ballet dancer and violinist. He later
conducted one of the royal orchestras and in 1662 became music master to the royal family.
A shrewd courtier, he retained the king's favour throughout his life and virtually ruled
the fortunes of other French composers. Lully composed ballets, such as Alcidiane
(1658), for the court, dancing alongside the king in many of them. In collaboration with
the French playwright Molière, he composed a series of comedy ballets including Les
fâcheux (The Bores, 1661), Le mariage forcé (1665), and Le bourgeois
gentilhomme (1670). He acquired a virtual monopoly over the performance of musical
entertainment in France, exploiting the grandeur and theatricality of Louis XIV's court.
In 1672 he intrigued to get for
himself the directorship of the Académie Royale de Musique (now the Paris Opéra) and
turned to opera. He modelled his operas, which he called tragédies-lyriques, on
the classical tragedy of his contemporaries, the French dramatists Pierre Corneille and
Jean-Baptiste Racine. Musically, his operas are solemn and stately, emphasizing the
clarity of the text and the inflections of the French language. Their elaborate dance
spectacles and choruses of massive grandeur have roots in the ballet de cour, or
courtly dance-pageant. Lully's operas stand in contrast to the Italian opera of the day,
with its emphasis on virtuoso solo singing. They include Persée (1682), Amadis
de Gaule (1684), and Acis et Galatée (1686). He died on March 22, 1687, in
Paris.
