Laissez durer la nuit

Unhappy love was frequent in the “Grand Siècle”, amongst the Olympian Gods as well as in the lovely Acadian fields. Following the fashion for Antiquity, and inspired by l’Astrée, the great novel of the seventeenth century, Le Camus, Delabarre, Lambert and his son in law Jean Baptiste Lully composed courtly airs and operatic arias evoking unfaithful nymphs and shepherds lost in love.

These virtuoso airs, often sung in Parisian salons, ravished a society in quest of refined delights and remain a dazzling testimony of French singing in the “Grand Siècle”.