Les Festins royaux du Mariage du compte d'Artois

Marriage of Charles-Philippe, Count of Artois with Marie-Thérèse of Savoy, on 16 November 1773 in Paris, with the blessing of Louis XV.

The show will be performed in the set of "The Marble Palace enhanced with gold" designed by the famous Ciceri for the Royal Opera.

In the Versailles of French kings, music was everywhere, especially at ceremonial events, and specifically at royal meals: for decades, the monarch had eaten in public and to music, and Lalande's Symphonies pour les Soupers du Roi are a magnificent example. When in the 1770s Louis XV's three grandsons got married one after the other, he had the Opéra Royal built to house the official ceremonies, including the Royal Banquet, in which music played an essential role. The cornerstone of the wedding ceremony, the grand ceremonial dinner was accompanied by music, which covered the hubbub of the hundreds of assembled courtiers and the noise of the table service.
A large orchestra of seventy musicians played splendid symphonies from the best compositions of the time, often successful operas. This collection of suites, whose orchestral refinement is matched only by their dramatic power and choreographic energy, was an apology for the great French tradition. Of this court music, we still have the collection of those performed in the Opéra Royal for the marriage of the Comte d’Artois (the future Charles X) in 1773, assembled and arranged for the occasion by Francoeur, and performed by the Superintendent of the King's Music, Rebel. Alexis Kossenko restores to these festive pieces the luxury of their performance with a full orchestra, on the very stage where they were performed for this historic wedding!

Partnership Centre de musique baroque de Versailles (CMBV) | Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing | Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Ecurie. The ensemble Les Ambassadeurs ~ La Grande Ecurie is in residence at the Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing from 2022 to 2024 as part of the cross-residency scheme set up by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles