The Dancing Fool:
Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
(c) Cheryl Lynne Bradley 2003
"We enter the world in a dancing position."Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, "Women Who Run With the Wolves"
Jean Baptiste Lully was born Giovanni Baptista Lulli on November 28, 1632 in Florence, Italy. He was the son of a miller and a miller's daughter, Lorenzo di Maldo Lulli and Caterina del Sera. As a child, Giovanni played the guitar and violin and was fascinated with music and dance. Giovanni was very shortsighted and the strain of trying to see had given him a wrinkled and wizened look that made people think he was much older than he was.
He often shirked his duties helping his father at his mill to watch street performers and strolling players. Such performers were frowned upon by the church and considered by the local authorities to be vagrants and criminals. Shows often ended hastily when the authorities showed up. At one such performance after the players had all scattered Giovanni had the good fortune to meet Roger de Lorraine, Chevalier de Guise who offered to place him in the service of his niece, Mlle de Montpensier who was also a cousin of the King of France. She had requested Roger de Lorraine to find someone who would converse with her in Italian and bring him back to the French Court at Tuileries. Arrangements were made with Giovanni's father and he left for Paris in March of 1646. He remained a part of Mlle de Montpensier's household for 6 years, learning French, the harpsichord and developing his performing and composing skills. In 1652 Mlle de Montpensier was exiled from Paris for her involvement in the Frondist movement and Giovanni thought he would end up scouring pots in a kitchen for the rest of his life.
At court he had frequent opportunity to hear the King’s grande bande perform and saw many royal galas where the best of dance music was played. Giovanni changed his name to the French equivalent, Jean Baptiste Lully and began entertaining all of the ladies of the Court with his songs, dances and violin music. This led to him becoming a member of the royal band which played at all special occasions. He was very involved in all aspects of entertainment at the Court. He composed, sang and danced in the Court ballet. All of the important parts were taken by the nobility but every ballet had a role for an imp, a fool, a jester, a monkey or a clown and Lully took on all of these roles. He was extremely agile and an excellent mimic. Louis XIV was a young king and he liked the humourous parts of the ballets over the dramatic or romantic aspects. Lully made him laugh until the tears rolled down his cheeks. The King also wanted to be a real performer and to take the leads in the Court ballets because he deserved them, not because he was King. Lully coached and encouraged him.
In February of 1653, Lully and Louis danced in the same ballet together. This ballet, Ballet de la nuit, gave Louis XIV his nickname the "Sun King". King Louis appointed Lully his Composer of the King's Music and Master of Music to the Royal Family. This appointment was the beginning of a lifelong bond between the King and Lully. Lully’s early career was focused on the ballet. This dance music shaped what was to become as French Baroque music. Between 1658 and 1671 Lully wrote thirty ballets, half of these were collaborations with Isaac de Benserade . Lully asked Pierre Beauchamps, Director of the Court Ballet, to create new steps for his stories and music. Beauchamp rose to the occasion, recording the dances in special signs which became to foundation for written choreography. In these works, Lully brought to the limelight some of the most basic of dances including the minuet, gavotte, and the bourée.
In 1664 Lully collaborated with the great dramatists Jean-Baptiste Molière and Corneille and poet Phillipe Quinault was his librettist. These collaborations created a French form of opera in two different genres, comédies-ballets and tragédies lyriques, and were usually drawn from classical mythology. Between 1673 and 1686, Lully composed 13 tragédies lyriques.
Lully enjoyed the favour of the King even though the King expressed displeasure at Lully's overt homosexual behaviour and at his overbearing manner with other musicians as he was heavily focused on discipline in the orchestra. In 1662, Lully married Madeleine Lambert, daughter of the composer Michel Lambert. The marriage contract was signed by Louis XIV, his queen and his mother, Anne of Austria. Madeleine bore him three sons who all became gifted musicians.
In 1681 Lully was the director of the Paris Opera. While ladies of the aristocracy were allowed to dance in the Court Ballet, women were not allowed to dance on the public stage. All of the roles were danced by men. During rehearsals for his new opera "The Triumph of Love", Lully felt that the only part of the performance that wasn't coming together was the dancers. No matter how finely wigged and powdered, a boy was still a boy. Lully thought that it would be impossible to find a woman bold enough to set the precedent. He overheard some of the female dance students complaining about not being able to dance on the Paris stage and he challenged the most outspoken one, Mlle. La Fontaine, to take the lead. She accepted the challenge and while most of the other students demurred, three more young ladies were also willing to dance. Few people believed that the public would accept women on stage but Lully took the chance. Mlle. La Fontaine, despite the fear of audience displeasure, danced beautifully and her performance was greeted by cheers. She became the first ballerina, the star of the Paris Opera and was given the title "Queen of the Dance" which she retained for 10 years.
On January 8, 1687, Lully injured his foot with his staff. Conductors used a staff to keep the beat in those days, not the baton we are familiar with now. The injury became abcessed and gangrene set it. He died on March 22, 1687. Lully's operas dominated the music scene for 100 years after his death but they are rarely performed now. Overtures and dances from some of his operas occasionally appear in instrumental performances. The comédies-ballets are now most often performed without the music and ballet from the original works.
