Les fêtes de Ramire

"Les fêtes de Ramire" ("The Celebrations of Ramiro ") is an opera in the form of a one-act "acte de ballet" by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a libretto by Voltaire, first performed on 22 December, 1745 at Versailles.

Voltaire wrote a new libretto to make use of music taken from his and Rameau's "comédie-ballet" "La princesse de Navarre", which had been performed earlier in 1745. ["Viking" p.840] Since both Rameau and Voltaire were busy writing a new opera, "Le temple de la Gloire", the Duke of Richelieu entrusted the job of fitting the music to the new libretto and adjusting the verse accordingly to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, who had not yet won his reputation as a major thinker, was an aspiring musician. In his later autobiographical "Confessions", Rousseau wrote he had worked hard on the task but Madame de la Pouplinière, Richelieu's mistress and an ardent champion of Rameau, rejected his efforts out of hand and sent the opera back to Rameau to revise.

Rousseau claimed he was responsible for the overture and some recitatives, but that Rameau and Voltaire had stolen all the credit. However, according to the musicologist Graham Sadler, only one "undistinguished" monologue "O mort, viens terminer les douleurs de ma vie" has been positively identified as Rousseau's. ["French Baroque Masters" pp.232-233] Nevertheless, the episode sowed the seeds for Rousseau's unrelenting hatred of Rameau, which would lead to the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s. [Girdlestone p.479]

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References

ources

*Girdlestone, Cuthbert, "Jean-Philippe Rameau: His Life and Work", New York: Dover, 1969 (paperback edition)
*Holden, Amanda, ed., "The Viking Opera Guide", New York:Viking, 1993
*Sadler, Sadler, ed., "The New Grove French Baroque Masters" Grove/Macmillan, 1988