The Foundation specialises in baroque music and maintains permanent agreements with the Versailles Baroque-Music Centre and other institutions. Several years ago Vicent Dumestre and Le Poème Harmonique set up a training project for young artists there. Each year the program is based on the rediscovery of an opera, which is subsequently performed on tour and has become one of the most important annual events for lovers of the baroque.

The first production, preserved in interesting audio and DVD recordings, was Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and the second baroque adventure is now beginning to take shape. On this occasion it will focus on the rediscovery and performance of Lully’s vocal tragedy Cadmus et Hermione, with a libretto by Philippe Quinault. The project is directed by Dumestre, with co-direction by Benjamín Lazar and staging and choreography by Gudrun Skamletz. The first selection of students to participate in the project will take place in November.

The first stage of the training period will take place in Royaumont in June and July of 2007 and the second part during November and December. 11 vocal soloists, a choir of 15 and eight dancers are set to participate in the project. The tour of Cadmus et Hermione begins on 2 January 2008 at the Paris Opéra Comique, where it will remain until the 31st, and in autumn 2008 the production will be restaged at the Versailles Opéra Royal. A possible tour is also planned for the end of 2008. This new project will undoubtedly become another collective success, both for Dumestre and the Royaumont Foundation and its sponsors.