The King Is Dancing

Seventeenth-century France. The young Louis XIV is after two things: absolute power, and dancing on stage. For him they are the same thing; when the king dances he is demonstrating his divine right. Beside him is the Italian-born composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully gives the king his music, his spectacle and his loyalty, and gains in return a power at court that nobody has held before. The third name is Molière, tied to the same patronage and waiting on the same king's permission. When Louis gives up dancing, Lully's world changes with it. The composer's devotion to the king is boundless and goes unreturned. Gérard Corbiau directs, with Benoît Magimel as Louis, Boris Terral as Lully and Tchéky Karyo as Molière. A hundred and fifteen minutes. Reinhard Goebel conducts the music.