Work: Le carnaval, mascarade royale
Composer: Jean-Baptiste Lully
Libretto: Philippe Quinault (with texts by Isaac de Benserade and Molière)
Critical edition: Bernardo Ticci (BTE2025)
Orchestra: Orchestra Modo Antiquo
Conductor: Federico Maria Sardelli
Chorus: Coro de’ I Musici del Gran Principe
Chorus master & assistant conductor: Samuele Lastrucci
Direction, choreography, sets & lighting: Emiliano Pellisari
Costumes: Daniela Piazza
Concept art: Nora Bujdoso
Production: Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Ferrara
Co-production: Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena
In collaboration with: Orchestra Modo Antiquo & NoGravity Theatre
Streaming platform: OperaStreaming (YouTube)
Subtitles: English / Italian
Live streaming: Saturday, 14 February 2026, 8:00 pm (CET)
Duration: approx. 2 hours
Access: Free
About the performance
Court ballet reached a moment of extraordinary vitality in the France of Louis XIV, and in Jean-Baptiste Lully it found its most effective musical architect. Le carnaval, mascarade royale, first performed at the Louvre in 1668 and later revived at the Opéra, belongs to that dazzling world in which spectacle, music, dance, and power were inseparable.
This opéra-ballet unfolds as a colourful theatrical anthology, bringing together characters from pastoral scenes, bourgeois satire, and the commedia dell’arte, alongside the exotic “turqueries” so fashionable at the time. Harlequin and Scaramouche, Arcadian shepherds, Spaniards, Italians, and Ottoman figures parade through a sequence of entrées that celebrate Carnival as a moment of social inversion and collective imagination.
The new production by Emiliano Pellisari, created in collaboration with NoGravity Theatre, places physical theatre and choreography at the centre of the staging, highlighting the close bond between music and movement that defined Lully’s court entertainments. Under the direction of Federico Maria Sardelli, Orchestra Modo Antiquo brings stylistic precision and theatrical energy to a score that blends elegance, wit, and ceremonial grandeur.
Streamed live and freely available on YouTube with English and Italian subtitles, this performance offers a rare opportunity to experience a lesser-known but essential chapter of French Baroque theatre—where dance, satire, and musical invention converge in festive excess.
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