Atys

Abstract

Atys, Lully's fourth full-length opera (or tragédie en musique), was first performed at the theater at St. Germain-en-Laye on January 10, 1676. The first public performance took place at the Paris Opéra in April that year. For reasons that have not been established, it became known as "the king's opera." More importantly, it marked a major development in the history of the tragédie en musique as established by Lully and his regular librettist Philippe Quinault. In their earlier collaborations—Cadmus et Hermione, Alceste, and Thésée—Lully and Quinault, while aspiring to the pure style of French Classical lyric theater, had not totally abandoned certain elements of Venetian opera, with its subplots and burlesque characters. Atys marks the beginning of a new phase in which all extraneous elements are purged in order to concentrate on the drama of the central plot. This was achieved without foregoing the brilliance of spectacle which formed an integral part of part of French opera.

As with all of Quinault's librettos for Lully (11 in all), the story is drawn from classical literature—in this case from Ovid's Fasti. It tells of the tragic love of Atys and the gentle river nymph Sangaride; their love is doomed by the opposition of Cybèle, Queen of the Gods, who also loves Atys. In the powerful and tragic denouement of the opera, Atys, driven temporarily mad by Cybèle, stabs Sangaride. Overcome with remorse when restored to sanity, Atys tries to kill himself, but is restrained by Cybèle, who instead transforms the stricken lover into a pine tree. Thus she too loses the man she loves. The opera ends in tragic mourning—a tone unique among Lully's operas and rare among seventeenth and eighteenth century operas, which, however tragically structured, invariably turn at the last to a satisfying happy ending.

Atys follows the tradition of tragédie en musique by being cast in five acts prefaced by a prologue. As was customary, the Prologue introduces a series of allegorical characters whose principal function is the glorification of Louis XIV, here praised as a hero by Time and a chorus of the Hours of Night and Day. Unlike Italian opera of this period, from which the chorus had disappeared, the chorus plays a major role not only in the prologue, but as participants in the drama itself. The chorus also allows for another essential feature of French operas, namely dance passages, which form the centerpiece of the divertissements introduced into each act. Atys includes one of the most famous of all Lully's divertissements: the famous sommeil (or sleep scene) (Act Three) in which Cybèle invokes the god of Sleep to announce her love to Atys in a dream, contrasting the pleasant dreams that he will experience if he returns her love with the nightmare of the baleful dreams he will suffer if he rejects her.

© Brian Robins, Rovi