Powerplay and riots in 17th century Paris

But music was causing riots in the French capital as far back as 1647, when there was a nationalist uprising during the premiere of Luigi Rossi’s opera Orfeo.

It was this controversial performance which helped create a French opera – which fought to avoid being tainted by the Italian form which was taking over the world.

“It was about French national identity,” says Clare Norburn, co-artistic director of Brighton Early Music Festival (BREMF), who has penned the script for Powerplay after an idea by soprano Elizabeth Dobbin.

“One of Louis XIV’s advisors, the Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, was trying to provide the country with Italian culture – but there was nothing worse to the French. They wanted their own identity, which comes across in a lot of the music we are presenting.”

At the heart of this year’s Cities-themed BREMF is the differences in musical style in cities across Europe.

“It wasn’t like today when you go to New York or Hong Kong and see all the same shops and same stuff on sale,” says Norburn. “Back in the 16th, 17th and 18th century things were defined by place – and music definitely was.”

In particular the French got very excited about their national art, theatre and opera. This premiere production combines the music of the 17th and 18th century Paris Opera with the stories of what went on behind the scenes – especially with their colourful composers Lully and Rameau.

“Lully was the composer who forged French opera,” says Norburn. “He had just arrived in Paris when Orfeo was staged. At that point there wasn’t a French tradition of opera – the riot highlighted there needed to be something. The French wanted the music to reflect the spirit of the people.”

Lully’s successor Rameau was to suffer though – as his work was accused of being too Italianate. Italian had become the “lingua franca” of music across Europe – with composers in Germany and the UK following the Italian tradition, and the language still used in modern musical notation.

For France to turn against it and look inwardly in the 17th and 18th century could be compared to the UK trying to turn its back on the rest of Europe in the 21st century – especially with the role Italy had as the centre of the Catholic Church.

“If you read what the French thought of Italian opera they thought it was too jarring and dissonant,” says Norburn. “If it was a dish it was over-salted. The French style was much more refined – the birth of ballet comes out of French opera music. It’s quite stylised, very beautiful, but quite oppressive too – almost like it is contained in a perfume bottle.”

To tell the story of the Paris opera and its behind-the-scenes battles over a 120-year period Norburn has eschewed using a physical character – instead using the point of view of a cherub above the stage.

“Love as a character features very strongly in French baroque opera,” she says. “There’s often a character on stage called Amor who fans the flames of jealousy or fires arrows of love to control the drama. He’s like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Cherubino in The Marriage Of Figaro. I thought it would be fun to have that character embodied by a plaster cast of a cherub.”

The tale is told as the opera closes for the night – in an almost dream-like space.

“The music performed is a springboard for Cherub remembering the nasty stuff that happened behind the scenes,” says Norburn, who read contemporary accounts in newspapers, letters and diaries.

“When Lully was in charge of the orchestra he had a terrible temper – he used to break violins over the back of musicians’ heads if he felt they didn’t play well enough.”

The story is being told by Le Jardin Secret and The BREMF Players led by Alison Bury, with dance and choreography devised by Annabelle Blanc and Edith Lalonger.

Duncan Hall

Starts 7.30pm, tickets from £12/£10, Prom tickets on the door £5. Visit bremf.org.uk