Opéra Royal - Morin: LA CHASSE DU CERF

Cultural

The soloists of the Royal Opera Academy will be the enthusiastic performers, echoing their ‘Tayaut, allez mes toutous!’ in the Hall of Mirrors for the opera La chasse du cerf.

Jean-Baptiste Morin, a musician in the service of the Duke of Orleans, who was a fine music lover, performed a perfectly seasonal entertainment before His Majesty Louis XIV in August 1708 at the Château de Fontainebleau: La chasse du cerf (The Deer Hunt).

A royal privilege and pleasure of princes, La chasse du cerf was the finest prerogative of the sovereigns from Louis XIII to Louis XVI, who developed and codified the practice. A huntsman's library could contain five hundred volumes, and more than three hundred terms were used to describe hunting: the wild boar has eight different names depending on its age... Dog handlers, packs of hounds, huntsmen and beaters were the daily companions of the kings of France.

It was therefore to specialists that Morin dedicated his cantata La chasse du cerf. ‘Painting the action from beginning to end’ is the theme of this musical work, punctuated by the deities and stages of the hunt: the wake-up call, the rendezvous, the report, lunch, the relays, the release of the hounds, the throw, the sighting of the stag, the hunt, the hallali, the death of the stag, the feast... but Comus, god of feasts, is also present, as is Bacchus, to celebrate the glory of Diana and the King.