Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully (born Giovanni Battista Lulli; 1632–1687) was a French composer, violinist, and conductor of Italian origin who became one of the leading figures of French Baroque music. He entered music history as the creator of French national opera and a defining architect of the courtly musical culture associated with the reign of Louis XIV.

Lully was born in Florence to Lorenzo di Maldo Lulli, a miller, and his wife Caterina del Sero. He learned guitar and violin early, performed comic intermedii, and was noted as an excellent dancer; his first music instruction came from a Franciscan monk. In March 1646 he came to France in the entourage of the Duke of Guise as a servant to the king’s cousin, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who practiced Italian with him. He quickly gained trust, becoming her page, and after her defeat and exile following the Fronde (1653), he secured his own position in Paris.

That same year he appeared as a dancer at court in Isaac de Benserade’s “Ballet de la Nuit,” while continuing musical studies with N. Métru, N. Giguet, F. Roberday, and possibly J. Cordier (violin). Louis XIV showed strong personal favor toward Lully and supported his rapid advancement: in 1653 he was appointed “composer of instrumental music,” in May 1661 he became “chief superintendent of the king’s music,” and in December 1661 he took French citizenship and changed the spelling of his surname from Lulli to Lully. In 1662 he married the cellist and singer Madeleine Lambert, daughter of court composer Michel Lambert; the marriage was reportedly urged by the king amid court scandal.

Initially responsible mainly for instrumental music, Lully soon took charge of vocal work as well. He led the orchestra known as “Les Petits Violons” from 1655 and wrote numerous court ballets in the 1650s–1660s (including ballets of Time, Flora, Night, the Seasons, and “Alcidiane”), continuing the longstanding French court-ballet tradition while introducing important formal innovations. In “Alcidiane” (1658) he presented the first example of what became known as the French overture, and in the “Ballet de Flore” (1663) he introduced trumpets into the orchestra beyond their earlier ceremonial fanfare role.

Lully’s long collaboration with Molière began with the comédie-ballet “Le Mariage forcé,” produced for the king, with choreography by Beauchamp and music by Lully. On Molière’s texts Lully contributed to a series of comédies-ballets, including “Le Mariage forcé” (1664), “La Princesse d’Élide” (1664), “L’Amour médecin” (1665), “George Dandin” (1668), “Monsieur de Pourceaugnac” (1669), “Les Amants magnifiques” (1670), and “Psyché” (1671, with Corneille). Their most famous joint work, “Le Bourgeois gentilhomme,” premiered at Chambord on 14 October 1670 and later at the Palais-Royal with Molière as Jourdain and Lully as the Mufti; Lully’s contribution included the overture, dances, intermedii (notably the Turkish ceremony), and the concluding “Ballet of Nations.”

Lully’s first opera, “Cadmus et Hermione,” on a libretto by Philippe Quinault, premiered at the Palais-Royal on 27 April 1673, after which the king transferred the theatre to Lully following Molière’s death. A hallmark of the new French opera was the expressive, speech-like declamation: contemporaries reported that Lully studied leading tragic actors, notating their pauses and inflections, and then shaped his musical recitative accordingly. He personally selected and trained musicians and singers, ran rehearsals, and conducted with a violin in hand.

He composed and staged thirteen operas (tragédies en musique / tragédies lyriques): “Cadmus et Hermione” (1673), “Alceste” (1674), “Thésée” (1675), “Atys” (1676), “Isis” (1677), “Psyché” (1678, an operatic version of the earlier tragedy-ballet), “Bellérophon” (1679), “Proserpine” (1680), “Persée” (1682), “Phaéton” (1683), “Amadis” (1684), “Roland” (1685), and “Armide” (1686). The opera “Achille et Polyxène” (1687) was completed after his death by his pupil Pascal Collasse, and the “heroic pastoral” “Acis et Galatée” (staged in 1686) also belongs among his major late works. “Armide,” first performed on 15 February 1686 with a Quinault libretto drawn from Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” was his last completed opera.

After Louis XIV’s marriage to Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon, who disapproved of theatre and opera, the king grew more distant from Lully. On 8 January 1687, while conducting his “Te Deum” for the king’s recovery, Lully struck his foot with the pointed staff (bâton) then used to beat time; the wound became an abscess and progressed to gangrene. He died in Paris on 22 March 1687.

In his operas Lully aimed to intensify dramatic effect through music, to preserve the natural rhythms of French declamation, and to give the chorus a strong dramatic function. His works enjoyed great fame in France and across Europe, remained on stage for roughly a century, and decisively influenced the development of the French operatic school. The article attributes to Lully several historical “firsts” associated with his practice and influence: singers appearing without masks, women dancing in ballet on the public stage, the introduction of trumpets and oboes into the orchestra, and the establishment of the French overture pattern (typically Grave–Allegro–Grave) distinct from the Italian model.

Beyond operas, Lully wrote many court ballets, symphonies, trios, violin airs, divertissements, overtures, and motets. Two of his sons, Louis (1664–1734) and Jean-Louis (1667–1688), also became composers. From the late 1970s–1980s onward, all of Lully’s tragédies were revived in modern productions and widely issued on CD and DVD, and much of his other music is also available in recordings; his life also inspired the Franco-Belgian film “The King Dances” (2000), based on a popular biography by Philippe Beaussant (1992).

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