Le bourgeois gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman)

Comic opera in five acts, in Fench with Hungarian and English surtitles

The performance is based on the works by Molière and Lully

As legend has it, in 1669, the French court had received the Ottoman Empire’s first emissary to Europe with enormous pomp, in the belief that he was one of the great Turkish ruler’s important ambassadors. After the ceremony and reading the sultan’s letter, however, it became clear that the envoy was actually quite low in rank. The magnificent celebration thus came to a ridiculous end. Nevertheless, Louis XIV, the Sun King refused to leave it at that! Instead, he commissioned Molière and court composer Lully to immortalise the awkward occasion in one of the greatest comedies in theatrical history.