Date of composition: 1749
Premiere: 22 April 1749 at the Académie royale de musique, Paris
Duration: 23 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performed in excerpts on 22 June 2011, conductor: Emmanuelle Haïm
French musical theatre of the eighteenth century offered a rich spectacle of singing, stage design, and dance, in various forms. Ballets of differing lengths and complexity were particularly important, serving both as entertainment within a performance and – where the plot permitted – as a dramaturgical element used to advance the development of the story. The most important genre of musical theatre was the tragédie lyrique, a five-act drama on a serious subject – examples include Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Zoroastre and Les Boréades.
Equally impressive was the opéra-ballet, which consisted of a series of staged tableaux connected by a thematic thread (as in Rameau’s Les Indes galantes). Also widespread was the genre of the pastorale héroïque, consisting of three acts and combining tragic-heroic elements with a pastoral setting, as Rameau’s Naïs, subtitled “opéra pour la paix” (“an opera for peace”), does.
The work was created for the celebrations held by Louis XV following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle / Aachen in 1748, which ended the War of the Austrian Succession. Joseph Guénot de Tréfontaine, the director of the Académie royale de musique, commissioned this work to win the favour of Louis XV and his mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour. Naturally, he turned to the two leading figures in opera at the time: the librettist Louis de Cahusac and Jean-Philippe Rameau. Naïs was a triumphant success at its premiere on 22 April 1749.
Cahusac used the prologue in the traditional way, as a tribute to the monarch. It recounts how the giants and titans revolt against the Olympians. Jupiter joins forces with other gods to restore order and divides power among them: he rules heaven and earth, Neptune the sea, and Pluto the underworld. Jupiter was, of course, none other than Louis XV – an allusion that would have been obvious to contemporary audiences. They could not help but draw parallels between Jupiter and the king, who, after the cessation of hostilities, ceded to the Netherlands and Austria those territories conquered by the French, in exchange for peace.
The three acts that follow the prologue tell the story of Neptune, who is in love with the nymph Naïs. Disguised as a mortal, he tries to win her for himself. However, Télénus, leader of the Corinthians, and Astérion, leader of the shepherds of the Isthmus, are also in love with Naïs. Naïs’ father, the blind seer Tiresias, warns Télénus and Astérion of the wrath of the sea god, which they misinterpret as a call to kill their rival in order to appease the divinity. As they prepare to attack the disguised Neptune by ship, he drowns them. Neptune then reveals his identity to Naïs and takes her to his underwater palace, where he transforms her into a goddess.
For the prologue, elaborate and sophisticated stage machinery was used to create a spectacular effect, allowing the mountains piled up by the giants and titans – intended to reach and overthrow the gods on Olympus – to be destroyed. After Jupiter had defeated his enemies, they sank into the stage machinery below and crushed their opponents. The third act must also have been a source of special wonder to the audience, as the sea god’s adversaries were engulfed by raging waters.