Versailles (AFP)

"O Richard! O my King!": This operatic aria, the last heard by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1789 before they were taken to Paris, will resonate again in Versailles, 230 years later.

At the Royal Opera, we exhume Thursday "Richard the Lionheart", famous opera André Grétry, favorite composer of Marie Antoinette with Gluck. It is also a small revolution in Versailles since it is his first "home production" since 1789.

In the hall, an architectural gem that will celebrate its 250th anniversary on May 16th, on stage, behind the scenes, we are putting the finishing touches to this production of an opera that has fallen into oblivion.

Having become a royalist hymn after the taking of the Bastille, the air was sung on October 1, 1789 "by the king's bodyguards upon the arrival of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who came to greet them at a banquet at the Opera royal ", tells AFP Laurent Brunner, director of Château de Versailles Spectacles.

- Air "counter-revolutionary" -

An air of three minutes symbolically sounding the knell of the monarchy: condemning the banquet as "counter-revolutionary", Marat, Danton and Desmoulins call to march on Versailles.

"It made a scandal in the revolutionary Paris (...) It was said that we walked on the cockade, which is not true.Three days later, the Parisiennes came to Versailles and the next day, the castle was empty, "says Brunner.

The royalists quickly made the analogy between the legendary king of England, a time captive, and Louis XVI: "O Richard, O my king, the universe abandons you, on earth it is only me Who I'm interested in you! "

Never given in its entirety at Versailles, this comic opera (alternating songs and spoken dialogues) will be played on this stage inaugurated on the occasion of the wedding of the future Louis XVI and the young archduchess, a passionate musician and opera.

"There is a real emotion to work in Versailles," says AFP Camille Assaf, head costume designer who favored costumes of the 18th century rather than the Middle Ages, the time of the book. "We are invaded by an atmosphere that infuses work more deeply".

- Caracos, whales and engaging -

"I watched a lot Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher" to study "the grace so special" of the time, she said showing in a box shimmering costumes and accessories characteristic of the time: caracos (short corselets), whalebone (ancestors of the corset) and engaging (lace ruffles extending the sleeves).

While in Trianon, scenes of intimate shows of the queen have been preserved, those of this production are a reconstruction, with painted canvases representing a castle and its surroundings. In this staging signed by the American Marshall Pynkoski and directed by the French conductor Hervé Nicquet, also include ballet paintings.

Six levels above the plateau, Carlos Casado is one of the last cintriers in France, most theaters having converted to computerized hangers.

"The movements are very fast, it's a physical job," says the machinist. "There is the + feeling + of the technician who can coordinate all that with the music ... it's like working the theater in its infancy," he adds.

The cintriers are not the only "vestiges" of Versailles. Six levels below the plateau, there is the "forest", huge machinery of time with its wooden columns and its capstans. "No theater has such a large stage stand," says Brunner.

Very few opera houses are so full of history but so poor in repertoire.

The building, located at the end of the north wing of the castle "has served very little," says Brunner: less than 19 nights in 20 years before the Revolution, before becoming a museum and then to welcome the Senate to Nineteenth century, and almost no show in the twentieth.

One of the first modular rooms in history, it was the largest in Europe before the Palais Garnier.

The next opera will be another wink to History: "The Ghosts of Versailles", created at the Met of New York 39 years ago, and where Beaumarchais seeks to change the course of history so that Marie- Antoinette ... is not guillotined.

© 2019 AFP