About the work
Tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault, based on the myth of Perseus from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. The opera was first performed in April 1682 at the Académie royale de musique in Paris and repeated at court in Versailles that July.
Plot
King Céphée promises his daughter Andromède to the hero Persée if he kills the Gorgon Méduse. Equipped with weapons from the gods, Persée slays the sleeping Méduse and then saves Andromède from a sea monster by confronting it with Méduse's severed head. At the wedding celebration, the rejected suitor Phinée attacks but is likewise turned to stone by the Gorgon's gaze.
Cultural significance
Contemporaries read the story as a glorification of Louis XIV: Persée's triumph over the Gorgons was understood as an allusion to the king's military successes against his European rivals. The work remained in the repertoire until 1746 and was specially revised in 1770 for the wedding celebrations of the future Louis XVI.