In 1733, Pergolesi created La Serva padrona in Naples, which won over Paris in 1752, becoming the symbol of Italian music. Quickly played in French...

In 1733, Pergolesi created La Serva padrona in Naples, which won over Paris in 1752, becoming the symbol of Italian music. Quickly played in French as La Servante Maîtresse, it inspired Rousseau for his opera Devin du Village, a parody of which was created under the title Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne. Mozart discovered it in 1768 and composed his Bastien und Bastienne in German for the private theatre of the magician Mesmer.

These two masterpieces bound through style and history come to life with colourful plots: lightness, falsehoods and what is comic create delightfully bubbly situations for the tyrannical servant and naive shepherds, from which Pergolesi and Mozart derived the best musical effects. Adèle Carlier, David Tricou and Marc Scoffoni, with the Opéra Royal Orchestra and Gaétan Jarry, carry this torch of emotion and comedy, so emblematic of the 18th century.