Les Arts Florissants

ensemble

An ensemble of singers and instrumentalists specializing in the performance of Baroque music on period instruments, Les Arts Florissants is renowned the world over. Founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, the ensemble named for a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, has played a pioneering role in the revival of a Baroque repertoire that had long been neglected (including the rediscovery of countless treasures in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France). Today, that repertoire is widely performed and admired: not only French music from the reign of Louis XIV, but also, more generally, European music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Since 2007, the ensemble has also been conducted by the British tenor Paul Agnew, who was appointed Musical Co-director in 2019.

Each season, Les Arts Florissants gives around 100 concerts and opera performances in France—at the Philharmonie de Paris, where the members are artists in residence; the Théâtre de Caen; the Opéra-Comique; the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; the Château de Versailles; and at numerous festivals—and is an active ambassador for French culture abroad, being regularly invited to cities including New York, London, Edinburgh, Brussels, Vienna, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow.

Since the 1987 production of Lully’s Atys at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, which was triumphantly revived in May 2011, it has been on the opera stage that Les Arts Florissants has enjoyed its greatest successes. Notable productions include works by Rameau (Les Indes galantes, Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Boréades, and Les Paladins, Platée), Lully (Armide), Charpentier (Médée, David et  Jonathas, and Les arts florissants), Handel (Orlando, Acis and Galatea, Semele, Alcina, Serse, Hercules, and L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato), Purcell (King Arthur, Dido and Aeneas, and The Fairy Queen), Mozart (Die Zauberflöte and Die Entführung aus dem  Serail), Monteverdi (his opera trilogy), but also by composers whose music is less frequently heard, such as Cesti (Il Tito), Landi (Il Sant’Alessio), Campra (Les Fêtes vénitiennes), and Hérold (Zampa).

For its theatrical productions, Les Arts Florissants has called on the talents of some of the greatest stage directors, including Jean-Marie Villégier, Robert Carsen, Adrian Noble, Andrei Serban, Luc Bondy, Deborah Warner, David McVicar, Claus Guth, and Jérôme Deschamps and Macha Makeïeff, as well as on renowned choreographers including Béatrice Massin, Ana Yepes, Jirí Kylián, Blanca Li, Trisha Brown, Robyn Orlin, José Montalvo, Françoise Denieau, Dominique Hervieu, and Mourad Merzouki.

Les Arts Florissants enjoys an equally high profile in the concert hall, as illustrated by the ensemble’s many acclaimed concert or semi-staged performances of operas and oratorios (Rameau’s Zoroastre, Anacréon, and Les Fêtes d’Hébé; Charpentier’s Actéon and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers; Campra’s Idoménée and Mozart’s Idomeneo; Montéclair’s Jephté; Rossi’s Orfeo; and Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Cecilia Bartoli as well as his Messiah, Theodora, Susanna, Jephtha, and Belshazzar), their secular and sacred chamber music programs (petits motets by Lully and Charpentier, madrigals by Monteverdi and Gesualdo, court airs by Lambert, hymns by Purcell, among others), and its approach to large-scale works (particularly the grands motets by Rameau, Mondonville, Campra, and Charpentier, as well as Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions).

The ensemble has produced an impressive discography of nearly 100 recordings (CD and DVD) and its own collection in collaboration with Harmonia Mundi directed by William Christie and Paul Agnew.

In recent years, Les Arts Florissants has launched several education programs for young musicians. The most emblematic is the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix: created in 2002, it is held every two years and has already brought a substantial number of new singers into the limelight. The Arts Flo Juniors program, launched in 2007, enables conservatory students to join the orchestra and chorus for the length of a production, from the first day of rehearsals up to the final performance. There is also the partnership between William Christie, Les Arts Florissants and New York’s Juilliard School of Music, which since 2007 has allowed a fruitful artistic exchange between the US and France. And launched in 2021, an annual program of master classes in Thiré (Vendée, Pays de la Loire) consists of short working sessions led by William Christie and Paul Agnew, with the aim of helping young professionals improve their skills.

Les Arts Florissants also organizes numerous events aimed at building new audiences. Linked to each year’s concert programs, they are designed for both amateur musicians and non-musicians, adults and children alike.

In 2012, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants created the festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie, in partnership with the Conseil départemental de la Vendée. An annual event, the festival brings together artists from Les Arts Florissants, pupils from the Juilliard School, and finalists from Le Jardin des Voix for concerts and promenades musicales in the gardens created by William Christie at Thiré, in the Vendée. In addition to the festival, Les Arts Florissants is working with the endowment fund Les Jardins de Musique de William Christie towards the creation of a permanent cultural venue in Thiré. In 2017, following a decision by the French Ministry of Culture, Les Arts Florissants was designated a “Centre culturel de Rencontre,” an honor that distinguishes projects combining creation, patrimony, and transmission. In 2018, Les Arts Florissants became the Foundation Les Arts Florissants – William Christie.

Les Arts Florissants receives financial support from the state through the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs, the Département de la Vendée, and the Région Pays de la Loire. The Selz Foundation is the ensemble’s Principal Sponsor. Aline Foriel-Destezet and the American Friends of Les Arts Florissants are Major Sponsors. Les Arts Florissants has been Ensemble in Residence at the Philharmonie de Paris and is recognized as a Heritage Site for Culture.