Florence, 1600: Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri, two virtuoso singers and rival composers. Striving to rediscover the expressive powers of ancient Greek tragedy, they revolutionized the art of singing and created a new style, which eventually would give birth to opera. In reaction to Renaissance polyphony, these monodies were intended to be sung with the simple accompaniment of a plucked intsrument in order to express the full range of human passions. Peri and Caccini would often accompany themselves but they would also perform with certain family members. Thus brother and sister in this duo follow most naurally a tradition passed on by those great musicians.

Henriette de Coligny, Comtesse de La Suze, was more than just a woman of letters admired in her time, even by the very demanding Boileau. It was as a free woman that she married for love; after the death of her husband, a second one was forced on her, but, still a free woman, she demanded to be ‘de-married’! Surrounded by expert musicians, Marc Mauillon shows us that her précieux poetic universe mixes tenderness with the most unexpected strokes of audacity, so much so that her verse inspired many composers of the Grand Siècle – and after!