The first French opera following a number of more or less successful attempts, the miraculous culmination of half a century of controversy over the place of music, dance and machines in the theatre, Lully and Quinault’s Cadmus & Hermione opened the new Académie royale de musique in April 1673. Borrowed from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and placed under the auspices of Apollo vanquishing the serpent Python, the subject develops Cadmus' wanderings, his victory over the frightful dragon and the miraculous seed: a sort of mythical "war and peace" (destruction of evil – sowing – rebirth) which found a strong echo in the Europe of that time.

Comparative studies by art historians, literature and musicologists, this book was produced with the help of Gérard Sabatier, Céline Bonhert, Jean Duron, Buford Norman, Thomas Leconte, Laura Naudeix, Jérôme de La Gorce and Rebecca Harris-Warrick, under the direction of Jean Duron.

The book contains 59 illustrations, 12 of which are in colour.

Summary
Introduction (Jean Duron)
The sources of Cadmus & Hermione (Jean Duron)
The myth
Point n'avez occis le dragon ? (Have you not slain the dragon?) (Gérard Sabatier)
Cadmus, Hermione and Apollo: a fabulous synthesis for the glory of the king and the arts (Céline Bonhert)
Men
The first of the French operas (Jean Duron)
Quinault’s role in the creation of French opera (Buford Norman)
The work
Cadmus & Hermione: plot (Laura Naudeix)
Libretto: reading-commentary (Thomas Leconte)
Looks
Cadmus & Hermione: model work or conclusive experience? (Laura Naudeix)
The stagings of Cadmus & Hermione during the reign of Louis XIV (Jérôme de La Gorce)
Dance in Cadmus & Hermione (Rebecca Harris-Warrick)
Annexes
Bibliography
Index of proper names
Authors' biographies

This book was also published as a programme for the performances of Cadmus et Hermione at the Opéra-Comique in January 2008 by Vincent Dumestre and Benjamin Lazare, augmented by a 32-page booklet devoted to the artists and the production (see the link to the review of the programme on classicnews).