Les Indes galantes

Les Indes galantes, opéra-ballet composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau that premiered in Paris on August 23, 1735. Active in France during the Baroque era, Rameau composed both for the entertainment of King Louis XV and for the public. Les Indes galantes was written for public entertainment, integrating instrumental, vocal, and dance elements into a single evening’s diversion. (Hybrid works of this type—preferably having an exotic setting, sumptuous costumes and sets, and elaborate stage machinery—were popular during the Baroque period.)

Les Indes galantes (“The Amorous Indies”—Indies being meant to represent any little known, and therefore exotic, place)—was the second of Rameau’s many operas. It premiered at the Paris Opéra and was performed more than 60 times in its first two years, yet Rameau made a series of revisions, with repeated subsequent premieres. In the end, this work was the most popular composition in his oeuvre.

Rather than offering a single story in several acts, Rameau and his librettist, Louis Fuzelier (1672–1752), opted for a sequence of similar tales set in far-flung places. In its initial performance there were only three parts, a prologue and two acts (or “entrées,” as Rameau called them). A third act was added a few performances later and then was completely revised. Some time later a fourth act was appended.

A grand overture, in which a slow introduction sets the stage for the melodic textures that follow, is succeeded by a prologue, in which mythological figures speculate on the nature of love. The first act, “Le Turc généreux,” is set on an island in the Indian Ocean, where a pasha loves a French girl whom he has taken captive. When the pasha recognizes that she loves the man who once rescued him from slavery, however, he takes pity on them and eventually releases both. The second act, “Les Incas du Pérou,” set during a Festival of the Sun in Peru, likewise treats a love triangle: a Spaniard, an Incan princess, and an Incan high priest. The Spaniard wins the contest, though not before the spectacular festival and the eruption of a volcano. The third act, “Les Fleurs—fête Persane,” set in Persia, treats suspected infidelity. The fourth and final act, “Les Sauvages,” which takes place in North America, features yet another love triangle, with a Frenchman and a Spaniard competing for the attentions of a young Native American woman, who rejects both Europeans in favour of a Native American warrior.