À Cour: Ayres de Cour des Grands Maîtres de la Tragédie Lyrique

Lila Hajosi, mezzo-soprano & Giovanni Bellini, lute

Mired in decadence and shrouded in subtlety, French court culture found no better expression than the intimate, sensual, and seductively nuanced Air de Cour. Yet, at the apex of the Ancien Régime, Bon–Goût tangles with Sprezzatura, as a Mazarin Italian import and Tuscan peasant’s son becomes “Surintendant de la Musique du Roi.” The monumental Tragédie Lyrique and the Comédie-Ballet of Jean Baptiste Lully, né Giovanni Battista Lulli, gradually eclipse the Air de Cour, as a glittering age hungry for spectacle swiftly hurdles towards its end.

Join us on a midwinter’s evening, as the French-Florentine duo of mezzo-soprano Lila Hajosi and lutenist Giovanni Bellini share a program of exquisite jewels from the rise of the Roi Soleil in the elegant and intimate Ridotto of the townhouse of NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò.

Works of Lully, Charpentier, Gallot le Vieux, Lambert, and Mouton. and excerpts from the Divertissement de Chambord, Ballet Royal de Flore, Ballet de Versailles.

NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò 24 West 12th Street, NY, NY 10011