At the age of 14, Louis XIV knows that he’ll rule France one day, but he also knows that everything will be done to prevent this from happening. It gives him a complex.
Through dance, at which the young king excels, and through the music he creates for him, Lully, the royal composer, reveals the boy’s true nature to himself and to society at large.
Thanks to these compositions and choreographies conceived to highlight his splendor, Louis bursts from his cocoon, the fully-fledged Sun King. Dancing, the royal being transcends its humanity; he becomes the Ideal Being, God on Earth… In him and through him, the State acquires a timeless, sacred, absolute rightness…
Lully and his companion, Molière, are the two great orchestrators of this ballet performed on a royal scale. They’re the king’s magicians; Lully is his voice and, to a great extent, his soul.
He adores the king with an intense, platonic infatuation that guides and governs him to his death. Lully believes the King cannot do without him. This delusion is his downfall, and Lully, after Molière, sinks into oblivion…