Ballet Royal de la Nuit

[2] It took 13 hours to perform and included the debut of the fifteen-year-old Louis XIV as Apollo, the Sun King (Le Roi Soleil).

The plot included mythological goddesses such as Venus and Diana, werewolves, demonic creatures and witches who celebrated a black Sabbath in the horrors of the night.

The Ballet de la Nuit was the subject of the annual Oxford Dance Symposium in 2004, and there is an extensive study of the work by a group of scholars.

[5] The symposium met at Waddesdon Manor, where the folio volume (Rothschild B1/16/6) with the arms of Louis Hesselin on the cover that contains stage and costumes designs is kept.

Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp subsequently published a volume Ballet de la Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6 with the Pendragon Press in New York.

First page of a 1690 manuscript copy of the musical score for the Ballet Royal de la Nuict , part of the Philidor Collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France [ 1 ]