Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Rameau: Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

June is the traditional month for weddings, and we all know that love and marriage go together ...er... like a horse and carriage. Also traditional in musical history is music--especially vocal music--written for marriage festivities. The greatest composer of the French baroque, Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) composed an operatic ballet héroique in 1747 for the lavish wedding celebration of Louis the Dauphine of France and the Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony. Originally titled "The Gods of Egypt," Rameau revised his score for "The Festivities of Hymen and Cupid" for a later performance at Versailles and at the Academie Royale de Musique in 1748.

Rameau always wrote wonderful dances into his operas. That's one reason why this opera/ballet remained in the repertoire for thirty years. The scene of the opera is set in ancient Egypt. In that exotic setting the classical divinity of marriage and his sidekick the boy god of desire work their confounding magic on Egyptians and Amazons, too. A spectacular production of the 1747 Versailles revision of Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour was mounted in 2014 by the Center for Baroque Music at Versailles. The ballet heroique was recorded in the opera theater of the royal palace complex. Hervé Niquet conducted the choir and orchestra of Le Concert Spirituel, with vocal soloists. (Niquet founded the period instrument orchestra.) The Spanish classical music label Glossa issued Rameau's work on two compact discs.