The Score | Grand Spectacle

California’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra went all-out in April with a lavish new staging of Rameau’s Le Temple de la Gloire, an opera-ballet with a political libretto by Voltaire that premiered at Versailles during the reign of Louis XV. Philharmonia Music Director Nicholas McGegan conducted, Catherine Turocy directed, and Cal Performances and Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles were co-producers for PBO’s first staging of a complete Baroque opera. There were period costumes designed by Marie Anne Chiment, plus soloists, chorale, and dancers from Turocy’s New York Baroque Dance Company. The idea to stage the original 1745 work—the 1746 revision is performed more often—came years after the original 1745 manuscript was discovered in the archives of U.C. Berkeley’s Hargrove Music Library. For the April performances Julien Dubruque edited the 1745 edition and Paris-based lighting designer Pierre Dupouey created Baroque-inspired lighting.