This video is an excerpt from Opera Atelier's 2004 production of Lully's Persée. Opera Atelier is an opera and ballet company based in Toronto, Canada specializing in period productions of 17th, 18th, and early 19th century repertoire. Persée featured Artists of Atelier Ballet and conductor Hervé Niquet leading Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir. Opera Atelier produces two operas each season at the historic Elgin Theatre.

Magnifique chant. Diction parfaite. Très belle réussite. bravo

hermoso, suntuoso, sublime. Como seria en los tiempos de Luis XIV

@spiderlime Why not? It was common to cast males in evil or comic female roles in Baroque opera. For example: La Haine and her entourage of sisters in Lully's Armide is given to a basse-baritone and male chorus respectively, or Arnalta to a haute-contre in Monteverdi's Poppea. Gender switching was common in general up until classical opera... more famously: Cherubino in Mozart's Figaro.

Hello everyone, Opera Atelier is performing Persée very soon in Toronto, Canada (April 26 to May 3, 2014) and in Versailles, France (Mai 23 to 24). I'll be singing both parts again (Céphée and Méduse). Don't miss it! Cheers, Olivier

Wonderful singing, excellent acting, beautiful stage and choreography - a joy to hear and see. I know the whole Persee by heart now.

Oh my precious little pop tarts, how fabulous!

@LaPrimavera Oliver Laquerre is a great actor, and a good singer, and incidentally rather cute lol... My comment was not really a reproach, just my first feeling when i saw this scene! Even if I must say that about opera staging, I'm a merciless reactionary. I want to see EXACTLY what people were seeing in the time of the composer (I hate these pretensions of "rejuvenate" the operas ; or why not "rejuvenate" the music too?). But I have to abandon this dream, I know...

@LaPrimavera2006 Yes it's true, if you want Lully was bi-sexual, since he had married the daughter of Lambert, another composer, and had three sons and three daughters with her! But at this time almost all gays were in fact bi-sexual, the present classifications were not really applicable... And you're right, it doesn't matter at all : he produced some beautiful music and that what really is great about him. Well said!

J'ai perdu la beauté (pas l'appetit) qui me rendit si belle, je n'ai plus ces cheveux si beaux...

The Medusa is Olivier Laquerre.

very nice! thanks for this medusa!!!!

Bon le titre mélange passé simple et passé composé... Mais c'est un détail^^. Sinon il y a Medusa's eyes de Symphony x...

HE IS AMAZING!!!!

I love this opera and the production here is wonderful. Is a full recording available anywhere? Opera Atelier would do well selling DVDs i think.

please, don't forget that this is THEATRE, so everything that doesn't change the music or the story can be well accepted! the idea of having Medusa as a man is simply GREAT!!!!!

Olivier Laquerre

I think Medusa is played by a man because she is supposed to be ugly. That was clearly the reason Platée is played by a man in Rameau's opera. Anyway, you need to fix the title. It took me a while to find it. It's supposed to be "J'ai perdu la beauté."

Charming travesti!!

@spiderlime Who said there couldn't be sexual tension between 2 men?

Yes, yes, I know all this, it's true. By the way, Lully himself was gay, what everybody knew very well in his time. I know a little song made about him when he died, I really can't report it here... Other than that, Olivier Laquerre is my conception of a "cute" guy but let's say "grand", if you want......

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who is the singer

C'est domage ignorer le tres bon baritone, la belle orchestre et la mise en scene. Domage,.

Whos the composer? Please

c'est un peu trop lent le tempo manque de punch

Nice... But here, I would say that aesthetics are rather inclined towards the Gaypride than towards Versailles...

you would have been right had medusa originally been a man. she was'nt.

The more I see all this stage performance, the less I like it. It may be authentic in some aspects, but to me it seems a little affectated (gestures etc.); they know what to do with their hands, faces and so on, but they don't know what to do with their acting.

whatever possible reason was there to cast medusa as a man? quinault missed on an opprtunity to create some tension between perseus and medusa there. a diffucult move to accept in an otherwise fine opera.