Covered in military glories, Louis XIV had just moved his Court to Versailles, giving all the arts a new lease of life: architecture, sculpture, painting, music... The gardens of the new château were an important part of the whole. Michel-Richard de Lalande, who had just been appointed sous-maître of the Chapel, teamed up with librettist Antoine Morel (probably one of the singers of the Musique du roi) in 1683 to propose an allegorical tour of the gardens: Latone, Flore, Cérès, Ancelade ... The deities of the fountains come together to celebrate the king, Versailles and its magnificent gardens.

The Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles recreated this splendid divertissement in 1997, in a concert given by La Sinfonie du Marais conducted by Hugo Reyne in the Bosquet des Rocailles.

The elegant work alternates arias, recitatives, dances, symphonies and choruses, making it particularly well-suited to a music school wanting to create a show uniting various disciplines, and, since the work lasts around half an hour, without needing to make a selection of excerpts (as is often the case with operas).

If you wish, you can also complete the programme with the Symphonies de Cardenio by the same composer, or with one of the other entertainments published by the CMBV: L'Idylle sur la paix (by Lully and Racine), or Typhon & les Géants (by Sébastien de Brossard), which are roughly the same length.