we do homework in french

Voice speed

Text translation, source text, translation results, document translation, drag and drop.

Website translation

Enter a URL

Image translation

Words for I do my homework in French

Learn the most common words for i do my homework in french. click on a word for more information and translations., related topics, as a human, i..., ready to learn french, language drops is a fun, visual language learning app. learn french free today..

• Drops for Business
• Visual Dictionary (Word Drops)
• Recommended Resources
• Redeem Gift
• Join Our Translator Team
• Help and FAQ

Drops Courses

French translation of 'homework'

Examples of 'homework' in a sentence homework

Trends of homework

View usage over: Since Exist Last 10 years Last 50 years Last 100 years Last 300 years

Browse alphabetically homework

• homeward bound
• homeward journey
• homework club
• homeworking
• All ENGLISH words that begin with 'H'

Related terms of homework

• a homework assignment
• my geography homework
• to do one’s homework
• to do one’s homework on sth
• View more related words

Quick word challenge

Quiz Review

Score: 0 / 5

Wordle Helper

Scrabble Tools

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Translation of devoirs – French–English dictionary

(Translation of devoirs from the PASSWORD French-English Dictionary © 2014 K Dictionaries Ltd)

Examples of devoirs

Word of the Day

If you are on hold when using the phone, you are waiting to speak to someone.

Searching out and tracking down: talking about finding or discovering things

Learn more with +Plus

• Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
• Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
• Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
• Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
• English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
• English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
• English–Dutch Dutch–English
• English–French French–English
• English–German German–English
• English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
• English–Italian Italian–English
• English–Japanese Japanese–English
• English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
• English–Polish Polish–English
• English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
• English–Spanish Spanish–English
• English–Swedish Swedish–English
• Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
• PASSWORD French–English    Noun plural
• All translations

To add devoirs to a word list please sign up or log in.

Add devoirs to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

French Homework Help: 10 Essential Resources

Au secours! (Help!)

Do you ever find yourself mentally screaming this while struggling to complete your French homework?

Ever get overwhelmed with your assignments and wish that someone—anyone!—would just step in and make the French murkiness a little clearer?

To help you out with this, we’ve compiled the 10 best online resources to get French homework help quickly. So read on, and then try out a couple next time you’re confused or stuck.

1. Bescherelle

2. larousse, 3. bonpatron, 4. alloprof, 5. verbling, 6. 24houranswers, 7. wordreference, 8. french language stack exchange, 9. tex’s french grammar, 10. le conjugueur, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

Summary: Well known grammar and conjugation help source

If you’ve ever attended an in-person French class, there’s a good chance you’ve already seen or heard of this first resource. Bescherelle is better known for its written counterpart, a guide to hundreds of verbs in the French language, but you don’t have to run to the bookstore just yet. Bescherelle is also available online!

Bescherelle   conjugates almost every verb imaginable into any tense imaginable. That means that you can look up any verb and find it in all verb tenses and participles . Additionally, you can get the verb conjugations in both the active and passive voice: an excellent resource for when you’re completing upper-level French papers that require you to write impersonally.

Further, when you search for a verb, you can find out whether it’s regular or irregular and you’ll even see other verbs that are conjugated with the same verb ending pattern.

In addition to the conjugator, the Bescherelle website includes  dictées (dictations) for you to practice your listening and writing skills, quizzes about verbs and their tenses as well as other grammar points such as nouns and adjectives. If you’re feeling energized, Bescherelle also has a selection of French-learning games .

Summary: Accurate and nuanced word definitions

Larousse is a famous French dictionary that’s also available online. That means you can search any French word you’d like and get an in-depth look at its meaning, not just a one-word translation that may miss the meaning entirely (I’m looking at you, Google Translate!).

The dictionary itself offers many resources for French learners and for French homework help. First, Larousse has a monolingual French edition so you can look up words and see their definitions in French. Larousse also has bilingual editions for many other languages. Larousse can translate words into English, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese and Arabic from French and vice versa.

In addition to its dictionaries,  Larousse offers a verb conjugator similar to that of Bescherelle. While it’s not as in-depth as Bescherelle’s, it gets the job done for quick searches of common conjugations. Further,  Larousse has an awesome encyclopedia to be used for French essays or other projects .

Finally, Larousse offers forums for people to post questions, which can be helpful if you’ve got a specific question about your French homework (more on getting those answered below).

Summary: Accurate online grammar and spell checker

For those who need a complete revision of French written compositions and not just simple word look-ups and verb conjugations,  BonPatron  is the holy grail! BonPatron  is an online French grammar and spell checker extraordinaire!

Let’s say you’ve been tasked with writing a paragraph or essay for your French course. You’ve looked up all the words you didn’t know and verified all the conjugations, and to be honest, you’re feeling pretty good about it.

But wait! Before you hand your work in, you should make sure everything is correct. Simply paste your French written work into the BonPatron  checker, and the service will find all your spelling and grammar errors for free. It’ll even give you necessary corrections as well as a small explanation for any mistakes you’ve made.

But it gets better: if the grammatical explanations don’t clarify the error for you,  BonPatron  also offers short tutorials on different aspects of French grammar.

Summary: Text and telephone connection to French Canadian speakers

Our first resource for personalized homework help is called  Alloprof,  a website from Québec that offers students a wealth of resources.

On  Alloprof , there are two services where students can connect directly with French educators to get answers to their questions or access personalized French homework help.

The first is called t exto  (text message) , a service where students can text their questions and receive text message answers. The second service is called  téléphonique  (by telephone) , where students can call in their questions and receive one-on-one, over-the-phone support.

Both services are available Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. That’s great because those are prime homework hours, but it can also force you to plan ahead (no last-minute homework help right before your morning class!).

Alloprof has a handful of other fun, independent practice tools , too.

You can access interactive exercises to help you review and practice grammar and vocabulary skills. Topics range from French grammatical explanations to history, science and mathematics.  Alloprof  also has a virtual library where students can access texts as well as a forum for students to communicate with other French learners.

This is perfect for asking informal French questions and getting answers from peers who may be studying the same material.

Summary: Excellent place to find good tutors and teachers

Verbling is a service that connects French learners to French teachers and tutors all around the world . If you’re stumped on your homework and need an expert to identify the learning block, Verbling is a super handy resource. Simply log on and pick a tutor that you like best.

All the language teachers are native speakers. You’ll find a short summary of the tutor’s specialities and get a feel for who they are personally. You can also access ratings from previous students so you can find the best educator to meet your needs. Verbling displays tutors’ rates right upfront so you know how much you’d be paying.

Verbling even uses its own virtual “classroom” set-up , where you can upload files and notes alongside a video chat. That’s perfect for quickly showing your tutor the class materials you’re having trouble with, or sharing your work so they can give you feedback.

Summary: Emergency help any time of the day or night

Like Verbling, 24houranswers connects French learners with tutors and teachers all around the world. 24houranswers has homework help for many subjects, but for French homework help, it focuses on the language at the college level , and as their name suggests, they’re available 24 hours a day .

Many of the tutors and teachers from 24houranswers are actual college professors or other education professionals . Their services include online face-to-face tutoring as well as written solutions. For example, you can submit a written assignment and receive feedback on the assignment—just be careful to leave enough turnaround time for your tutor, so you don’t hand in an assignment late.

In addition to their in-person support, you can browse their online library of previously solved French homework questions to see if your question has already been asked and answered.

Summary: Excellent dictionary and active online forums

WordReference is like your friendly online language buddy that’s perfect for French homework help.

It’s not just your regular dictionary–it’s like a language wizard that gives you not only translations but also cool explanations , real-life examples and even a forum where you can chat with others about tricky words.

So, when you’re scratching your head over that French assignment, WordReference and the many who are active on its message boards could provide the help you need.

Summary: Online forum where you can ask other learners questions

French Language Stack Exchange is like a cozy virtual cafe where French enthusiasts gather.

Imagine you’re stuck on a tricky French homework question—instead of feeling lost, you can pop into this online spot and ask for help. It’s not just a Q&A— it’s like having a group of friends who love French as much as you do.

They share tips, tricks and their own experiences, making those confusing parts of French class feel way less daunting. So, next time you’re puzzled, French Language Stack Exchange is the friendly table where answers and insights flow like great conversation. 

Summary: Easy to understand grammar lessons

Tex’s French Grammar is your friendly language mentor, ready to unravel the mysteries of French homework. Think of it as having a patient teacher who breaks down grammar rules into bite-sized pieces that make sense.

It’s not about dry lessons—it’s like having a conversation with someone who gets you. Tex’s Grammar doesn’t just throw rules at you—it explains why they matter and gives you examples that light up the “aha” moments. So, when French assignments seem like a puzzle, Tex’s French Grammar steps in to help you put the pieces together and ace that homework. 

Summary: Excellent and reliable verb conjugation charts

This site by popular French language newspaper  Le Figaro  is a great online resource for French students who are looking for help with verb conjugations.

It’s a super accurate conjugation tool that allows you to conjugate verbs in various tenses, moods and persons. It’s particularly useful for students who are working on grammar exercises or assignments that involve verb conjugations. You can enter a verb and see its conjugation presented in a clear and organized format.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Try FluentU for FREE!

Your call for help has been answered! Go forth and finish that French homework (with help, of course)!

FluentU has a wide variety of great content, like interviews, documentary excerpts and web series, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native French videos with reach. With interactive captions, you can tap on any word to see an image, definition and useful examples.

For example, if you tap on the word "crois," you'll see this:

Practice and reinforce all the vocabulary you've learned in a given video with learn mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning, and play the mini-games found in our dynamic flashcards, like "fill in the blank."

All throughout, FluentU tracks the vocabulary that you’re learning and uses this information to give you a totally personalized experience. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Enter your e-mail address to get your free PDF!

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe

StudyMonkey

Your personal ai french tutor.

Learn Smarter, Not Harder with French AI

Introducing StudyMonkey, your AI-powered French tutor .

StudyMonkey AI can tutor complex French homework questions, enhance your essay writing and assess your work—all in seconds.

No more long all-nighters

24/7 solutions to French questions you're stumped on and essays you procrastinated on.

No more stress and anxiety

Get all your French assignments done with helpful answers in 10 seconds or less.

No more asking friends for French help

StudyMonkey is your new smart bestie that will never ghost you.

No more staying after school

AI French tutoring is available 24/7, on-demand when you need it most.

French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul.

AI Tutor for any subject

American college testing (act), anthropology, advanced placement exams (ap exams), arabic language, archaeology, biochemistry, chartered financial analyst (cfa) exam, communications, computer science, certified public accountant (cpa) exam, cultural studies, cyber security, dental admission test (dat), discrete mathematics, earth science, elementary school, entrepreneurship, environmental science, farsi (persian) language, fundamentals of engineering (fe) exam, gender studies, graduate management admission test (gmat), graduate record examination (gre), greek language, hebrew language, high school entrance exam, high school, human geography, human resources, international english language testing system (ielts), information technology, international relations, independent school entrance exam (isee), linear algebra, linguistics, law school admission test (lsat), machine learning, master's degree, medical college admission test (mcat), meteorology, microbiology, middle school, national council licensure examination (nclex), national merit scholarship qualifying test (nmsqt), number theory, organic chemistry, project management professional (pmp), political science, portuguese language, probability, project management, preliminary sat (psat), public policy, public relations, russian language, scholastic assessment test (sat), social sciences, secondary school admission test (ssat), sustainability, swahili language, test of english as a foreign language (toefl), trigonometry, turkish language, united states medical licensing examination (usmle), web development, step-by-step guidance 24/7.

Receive step-by-step guidance & homework help for any homework problem & any subject 24/7

Ask any French question

StudyMonkey supports every subject and every level of education from 1st grade to masters level.

Get an answer

StudyMonkey will give you an answer in seconds—multiple choice questions, short answers, and even an essays are supported!

Review your history

See your past questions and answers so you can review for tests and improve your grades.

It's not cheating...

You're just learning smarter than everyone else

How Can StudyMonkey Help You?

Hear from our happy students.

"The AI tutor is available 24/7, making it a convenient and accessible resource for students who need help with their homework at any time."

"Overall, StudyMonkey is an excellent tool for students looking to improve their understanding of homework topics and boost their academic success."

Upgrade to StudyMonkey Premium!

Why not upgrade to StudyMonkey Premium and get access to all features?

Along with Stanford news and stories, show me:

• Student information
• Faculty/Staff information

We want to provide announcements, events, leadership messages and resources that are relevant to you. Your selection is stored in a browser cookie which you can remove at any time using “Clear all personalization” below.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

France prison van attack: All we know about the ambush and fugitive Amra

Armed men ambushed a prison van to free a prisoner killing two prison guards, triggering a major police manhunt.

Armed men wearing balaclavas ambushed a prison van in northern France on Tuesday to free a convicted “criminal”, notorious as “the fly”, killing two prison guards, severely wounding three and triggering a major police manhunt.

Here is what we know about the incident:

Keep reading

Gunmen kill two guards, free inmate in france prison van attack, what happened in france and when.

Two prison officers were killed in an ambush on a prison van in the Normandy region in northern France. The incident took place shortly before 11am (09:00 GMT) near a toll booth in Incarville commune.

According to officials, a black Peugeot 5008 rammed a police van transporting prisoner Mohamed Amra, who was reportedly a drug dealer and was involved in other crimes also, from court to Evreux jail. As a result, three other officers were injured, one of whom remains in critical condition.

Amra escaped, setting off a manhunt involving several hundred officers.

The French police said on Tuesday evening they found two burned-out vehicles used by the attackers.

The victims were the first prison officers to be killed in the line of duty since 1992, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said.

Where did the attack happen?

The ambush took place near a toll booth at Incarville on the A154 motorway near Rouen in the Eure department of Normandy.

Amra was being transported between the towns of Rouen and Evreux. Following the attack, traffic was stopped on the A154 motorway.

Who is Mohamed Amra?

According to reports, Amra has ties with a gang in the southern city of Marseille, an area that has been affected by drug-related gang violence.

The 30-year-old had been convicted of burglary by a court in Evreux on May 10 and was being held at the Val de Reuil prison.

Prosecutors said Amra had also been indicted by prosecutors in Marseille for a kidnapping that led to a death.

Amra was born on March 10, 1994, in Rouen, the capital of the Normandy region. He was known by many other aliases – Momo, La Mouche (the fly), Yanis and Schtroumpf.

According to a report by the Reuters news agency, he was a drug dealer with ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.

A Le Monde report said the fugitive was not a “big fish” but rather in the “middle-of-the-pack of the gangster hierarchy”.

However, his transport still reportedly required a “level three escort”, which meant the presence of five prison officers accompanying him.

Amra’s lawyer, Hugues Vigier, told BFM TV that the degree of violence did not correspond with the person he knew. He said Amra had tried to escape from prison on Sunday by sawing the bars of his cell.

“This element suggests that there was an escape attempt in preparation,” Vigier said.

What do we know about the victims?

One of the guards killed was a 52-year-old father of twins, according to Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau. He had three decades of experience.

The other guard who was killed was expecting a child with his wife who is five months pregnant.

According to local media reports, three other officers sustained injuries during the assault.

What is the latest on the ground in France?

France’s main prison guards’ union called for a symbolic one-day shutdown of the country’s jails “to express our emotion in support of our colleagues who died in service”.

It also sought an emergency meeting with the justice minister to discuss prison overcrowding and security risks.

According to local media reports, the shutdown was observed in several cities, including Nice, Caen, and Marseille.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X he had ordered the activation of France’s Epervier plan, a special operation launched by the gendarmerie, a branch of the armed forces, in such situations.

Local reports said on Wednesday about 450 officers were mobilised in the Eure department.

“Absolutely everything will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” Darmanin told BFM TV on Tuesday.

What were the reactions?

French President Emmanuel Macron said on X, “Every effort is being made to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people.”

“We will be uncompromising,” he added, describing the attack as a “shock”.

Amra’s mother said in an interview her son did not give any indication of trying to escape. After learning about the ambush, she said she broke down.

“I broke down, I cried – I was so unwell – how can lives be taken away in this way?” she told RTL.

“This brutal attack shows the threat of organised crime is as big as the terrorist threat,” the European Union’s Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson wrote on X. “We must counter it with the same determination.”

Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month’s European elections and the incident led to fierce reactions from politicians, especially the far right.

“It is real savagery that hits France every day,” said Jordan Bardella, the top candidate for the far-right National Rally (RN), which is leading opinion polls for the elections.

The attack comes just months before the Olympic Games start and days after the Olympic flame arrived in Marseille.

• Entertainment
• Rex Reed Reviews
• Awards Shows
• Climate Change
• Restaurants
• Gift Guides
• Business of Art
• Nightlife & Dining
• About Observer
• Advertise With Us

Opera Lafayette’s French Baroque Gems Enliven Spring on the Upper East Side

The company's smallish original-instrument orchestra began roughly but quickly found its footing under the experienced guidance of guest conductor christophe rousset..

For nearly three decades, Opera Lafayette has steadily been expanding America’s understanding of 17th- and 18th-century opera and more specifically, works of the French baroque. Founded during the 1995-96 season in Washington, D.C. by violinist-conductor Ryan Brown , the company has lately been performing in both D.C. and New York City, where it recently completed one of its strongest seasons with the modern premiere of Jean-Joseph Mouret’s delicious Les Fêtes ou le Triomphe de Thalie. 

Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our <a rel="noreferrer" href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

The company began with concerts of chamber music and one-act operas but soon moved on to concert performances of grander full-length rarities like Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie and Lully’s Acis et Galatée. Eventually, it began to record its offerings on the Naxos label beginning with Gluck’s Orphée ed Eurydice and Sacchini’s Oedipe à Colone , and the company found a special niche reviving and recording opéra-comiques , brief comic operas with spoken dialogue that began to flourish in the final decades of the 18th Century. Works from composers like Monsigny, Grétry and Philidor, once familiar only as titles in The Grove Dictionary of Opera, came alive in Opera Lafayette productions that mixed North American and European singers under Brown’s baton.

The company began to expand its role in rediscovering forgotten primarily French works by surrounding its excavations with streaming informative talks leading up to performances and commissioning essays from scholars that appear in the glossy collectible programs published for each new season. The past three series have been dedicated to influential 18th-century women: Marie Antoinette , followed by two of Louis XIV’s most consequential mistresses, Madame De Pompadour and Madame de Maintenon —the latter being the inspiration for the 2023-24 season.

Long forgotten, Mouret won his slim slice of immortality in the 1970s when his brief Rondeau became the theme for PBS’s long-running Masterpiece Theatre.

Otherwise, his works are rarely performed or recorded, though that may change when the new Opera Lafayette edition of Les Fêtes de Thalie (its shortened title) by harpsichordist Korneel Bernolet becomes widely available. Working from versions of Thalie on which Mouret toiled from 1714 to 1720, Bernolet resurrected a delightful addition to the genre known as opéra-ballet. Arising in the late 17th Century as a lighter, more accessible counterpart to the longer, serious tragédie lyrique created by Jean-Baptiste Lully , an opéra-ballet usually consisted of a prologue followed by three or four discrete mini-operas called entrées that regularly featured lots of dancing.

André Campra composed several important early ones, including Le Carnival de Venise which the Boston Early Music Festival revived in 2017 and Les Fêtes Vénitiennes brought the previous year to the Brooklyn Academy of Music by the noted French group Les Arts Florissants. Fêtes shows up in the titles of many of these works: Rameau alone composed three, Les Fêtes d’Hébê, Les Fêtes de L’Hymen et de l’Amour (which Opera Lafayette performed in 2015 and released on DVD) and Les Fêtes de Polymnie. However, the best-known and most widely performed opéra-ballet would be Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes.

The three downright hilarious entrêes of Mouret’s Thalie (AKA the Greek muse of comedy) wittily chart three stages of womanhood: La Fille, La Femme and La Veuve Coquette or The Girl, The Wife and The Coquettish Widow. In Opera Lafayette’s economical production performed at Museo del Barrio, La Fille embraced its maritime setting where a young sailor outwits the amorous advances of his beloved’s mother (!) portrayed with just the right bawdy spirit by tenor Patrick Kilbride in drag. Next, the Widow, ecstatically happy to be released from the burdens of marriage, flirts with a pair of suitors she has no intention of accepting. Perhaps in a sly nod to the new film Challengers about a fraught romantic triangle, the two rejected men exited arm-in-arm. In the final entrêe, a wise wife exposes her philandering husband whose eye has landed on a masked woman who proves to be his own wife in disguise.

SEE ALSO: With Electrifying New Casts, the Met’s ‘Carmen’ and ‘Butterfly’ Are Worth a Second Look

Joseph de La Font ’s amusing if slim plots function primarily to give Mouret many opportunities to adorn them with fancifully beguiling ariettes, duets and especially suites for dancing. Five choreographers— Julian Donahue , Julia Bengtsson , Anuradha Nehru , Pragnya Thamire and Caroline Copeland —gave their small troupe of dancers spirited and inventive steps for Mouret’s consistently engaging ballets which are full of irresistible earworms.

Opera Lafayette’s smallish original-instrument orchestra began roughly but quickly found its footing under the experienced guidance of guest conductor Christophe Rousset whose vast experience in this repertoire with his own group Les Talens Lyriques assured that Thalie was in the best of hands. Rousset’s unerring feel for Mouret’s music brought a suave vigor to the infectious dance movements, and his singers brought a stylish elegance to their often tart interchanges.

When I saw that Angel Azzara ’s repertoire included dramatic soprano roles by Richard Strauss and Puccini, I feared that she would be miscast in delicate French baroque music. Instead, she revealed a richly insouciant command that delighted as Melpomène and Doris. A late replacement to the cast, Paulina Francisco sparkled as the capering Thalie, while Ariana Wehr’s bright soprano rang out sweetly in several saucy soubrette roles. Pascale Beaudin slyly evoked the Widow and the Wife’s worldly wiles.

Mouret gave the men less interesting roles, but Jonathan Woody strutted with fatuous conviction as Cléon, the Girl’s father. While tenor Jean-Bernard Cerin began weakly as the harassed sailor, he brought a winningly pompous hauteur to Dorante, the would-be adulterer brought to his senses by his wise wife. When not performing one of their roles, the singers banded together offstage for Mouret’s inventive choruses, though double the number of singers would have done those pieces greater justice.

New York City hosted stellar performances of French baroque opera long before Les Arts Florissants began visiting and Opera Lafayette was founded. During the 1980s and early 90s Concert Royal, conducted by James Richman , brought local audiences many fine Rameau performances, several directed and choreographed by Catherine Turocy who returned to Opera Lafayette to neatly bring together all of Thalie’ s singers and dancers in a joyously captivating evening.

Two nights later, six singers and a small instrumental ensemble gathered under Justin Taylor ’s direction at St. Peter’s Church for “From Saint-Cyr to Cannons: Moreau and Handel’s Esther ,” an intriguing program much closer to the serious character of Madame de Maintenon. It explored two musical responses to Racine’s sacred drama Esther. The playwright’s works often featured incidental music, and Jean-Baptiste Moreau ’s composed his for the play’s 1689 premiere consisting of ten graceful instrumental and vocal selections.

Though lacking Charpentier’s genius, Moreau’s vocal writing similarly relishes the intertwining female voices accompanied by strings and recorders. Together, Francisco, Elisse Albian and Kristen Dubenion-Smith often achieved a spellbindingly seraphic blend enhanced by St. Peter’s warmly reverberant acoustic. Taylor, conducting from the harpsichord, drew exquisite playing from his band which also excelled in Handel’s more aggressive music; here, fourteen numbers were excerpted from the composer’s early English oratorio.

Francisco, an American singer and scholar who this season has also been touring the world in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen as a member of Le Jardin des Voix, Les Arts Florissants’s young artist group, sang Esther’s arias with a plangently crystalline soprano and partnered beautifully with Jesse Darden in the haunting duet “Who calls my parting soul from death.” While I imagined that Taylor’s six singers would stick to arias and duets, they combined with remarkable success for several of Handel’s complex choruses. Woody (who also excelled as the braggart Haman), Darden and Jacob Perry joined the ladies in the stirring “Forever Blessed” that concludes the oratorio.

While Opera Lafayette has mostly stuck to works from the 17th and 18th Centuries, a while back it ventured into the 19th for Felicien David ’s Lalla Roukh. For its upcoming 30th season, Brown’s final one as artistic director, the group will again present a true rarity: the world premiere of Edmond Dédé’s 1887 Morgiane, the earliest known opera by a Black American.  

During the weekend following Opera Lafayette’s baroque festival, The Sebastians, the local period-instrument ensemble, offered a provocative all-instrumental follow-up entitled “The 24 Violins Cross the Alps” at the Brick Presbyterian Church. Les Vingt-Quatre Violons was the name of Lully’s top-notch orchestra and The Sebastians programmed a few of that composer’s compositions and placed them alongside several by Muffat and Corelli who although not French were much influenced by Lully.

The result was an entrancing eighty minutes of sumptuous music-making by the young orchestra of twenty-four violins, violas and cellos filling out the five-part string writing with an additional four instrumentalists providing continuo support, plus a percussionist whose contributions were the afternoon’s only sour notes. It was quite disconcerting to hear a drum and some species of triangle during the concert’s opening selection, the overture to Lully’s well-known Atys. Although the drum added considerable verve to dance movements from Lully’s Ballet du Palais d’Alcine, the triangle always sounded intrusive, even inappropriate, particularly during excerpts from Muffat’s superb Armonico tributo. 

Otherwise, the group’s vital musicians produced wonderfully varied and lush sounds that reached their apex in the ravishing trio of chaconnes that concluded the concert. Particularly impressive was the famous “Passagaglia Grave” from the fifth Armonico sonata in which a small group featuring Daniel Lee, Nicholas DiEugenio and Ezra Seltzer alternated in sections with the entire orchestra for a richly ecstatic end to a special week of newly rediscovered baroque delights.

• SEE ALSO : Will Keen On Playing Vladimir Putin On Broadway in ‘Patriots’

We noticed you're using an ad blocker.

We get it: you like to have control of your own internet experience. But advertising revenue helps support our journalism. To read our full stories, please turn off your ad blocker. We'd really appreciate it.

How Do I Whitelist Observer?

Below are steps you can take in order to whitelist Observer.com on your browser:

For Adblock:

Click the AdBlock button on your browser and select Don't run on pages on this domain .

For Adblock Plus on Google Chrome:

Click the AdBlock Plus button on your browser and select Enabled on this site.

For Adblock Plus on Firefox:

Click the AdBlock Plus button on your browser and select Disable on Observer.com.