Versailles - a game of intrigue

Musique champètre meets Trendgame

We know Jean Antoine Watteau's cheerful images of a gallant society enjoying themselves in peaceful parkland. And the task of music, as contemporaries wrote, was also to imitate the beautiful, gentle nature. Behind this lies a utopian ideal: the shepherd's world as a peaceful and happy alternative to the depraved courtly world with all its intrigues and scandals.

Monsieur Dufour, played by actor Thos Renneberg, is the victim of such an intrigue. He is in Versailles together with the audience. His aim: to solve the intrigue with the help of the audience and based on clues and to restore his good reputation. Based on the game concept of escape games, three puzzles must be solved and logical conclusions drawn.

As in the past, the music is the opposite of the intrigue: with musique champètre, the ensemble Chant des Grillons interrupts and accompanies the crime-solving action. The five musicians The audience can then, like the nobles of the time, escape into a world in which "the shepherds, in order to please their beauties, joined their dances with the sound of their extremely soft and flattering voices. One regrets not living in a region where there is no other ambition than to please, and no other occupation than to love and be happy."