Throw enough money at opera and this is an art form that can respond with a lavishness no other can match. Louis XIV was certainly not short of cash and the emergence of a national French opera during ...

The fatal attraction between a sorceress and a Christian Crusader in Lully's opera Armide is the very definition of angst. For a work written in 1686, Armide was also way ahead of its time since it ...

Those turned off French baroque opera by English National Opera's dreary recent attempt at Rameau's Castor et Pollux may change their minds after seeing Robert Carsen's production of Lully's Armide, ...

When it comes to gross flattery, nobody outdid the composers who served the court of the Sun King Louis XIV. And nobody outdid Jean-Baptiste Lully , the King’s favourite. "The whole universe praises ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

French music with a Hungarian twist as György Vashegyi and his Budapest band join forces with the Versailles Baroque Music Centre, conjuring up the splendour of 18th-century court celebrations for ...

The Palace of Versailles has always been about artifice. Nothing is quite true, its spectacle invented and reinvented for its age. Ironically, in our days of access and equality, it is probably far ...