Charpentier's Les Arts Florissants & La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers 

Following the magical performance of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at Caramoor in 2024, pioneering conductor and harpsichordist William Christie returns to present the work that gave his renowned Baroque ensemble its name: Les Arts Florissants. In this double bill, two miniature operatic gems by Marc-Antoine Charpentier shimmer with expressive choruses, eloquent declamation, courtly airs, and vibrant instrumental colors, revealing the French composer’s dramatic genius. The performance features soloists from Le Jardin des Voix, the ensemble’s international academy for young singers.  

Les Arts Florissants 
William Christie, Music Director 
Singers from Les Jardin des Voix 
Marie Lambert and Stéphane Facco, stage direction 
Choreography by Martin Chaix 

CHARPENTIER: Les Arts Florissants  
CHARPENTIER: La Descente d'Orphée aux enfers 

6:00pm / Pre-concert lecture with Julia I. Doe, Associate Professor of Music at Columbia University. 

To close its 80th anniversary season, William Christie has chosen a symbolic gesture: to share with the public, for the first time since the 1980s, Marc-Antoine Charpentier's short opera that gave its name to the ensemble… Les Arts Florissants. Presented as a double bill with another operatic work by the same composer, La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers (Orpheus' Descent into the Underworld), this new performance will also offer the opportunity to discover the voices of the ten new laureates of Le Jardin des Voix (The Garden of Voices), Les Arts Florissants' international academy for young singers. A truly triumphant finale! 
 
Les Arts Florissants and Charpentier's La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers are part of the "origin story" of Les Arts Florissants, which performed them from their very first concerts. True gems of theatrical music, these pocket operas have been—and still are—remarkably rich testing grounds for experimentation. It contains all the ingredients of Baroque vocal art: choruses in the style of the Roman school, eloquent declamatory solos, arias reminiscent of courtly airs… as well as echoes of Lully’s comedies and tragedies, with typical overtures and lively, colorful instrumental pieces. These two masterpieces consecrate Charpentier’s dramatic genius, whose impact on audiences to this day remains living proof. 
 
To bring them to life, this new production will utilize all the energy and talent of the ten new laureates of the Jardin des Voix academy. These young singers, selected from around the world by William Christie and Paul Agnew, will perform together for the first time with the musicians of Les Arts Florissants and immerse themselves in the ensemble’s core repertoire: French music of the Grand Siècle. 
 
A celebration of the arts, in which directors Marie Lambert-Le Bilhan and Stéphane Facco, along with choreographer Martin Chaix and his dancers, will participate to reveal its full flavor and emotion!