Dardanus

Dardanus is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau with a French-language libretto by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère. It takes the form of a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts. Dardanus premiered at the Paris Opéra on 19 November 1739 to mixed success, mainly because of the dramatic weakness of the libretto. This caused Rameau and La Bruère to rework the opera, completely rewriting the last three acts, for a revival in 1744. Only when Dardanus was again performed in 1760 did it win acclaim as one of Rameau's greatest works. The original story is loosely based on that of Dardanus, the son of Zeus and Electra, and ancestor of the Trojans. However, in the opera, Dardanus is at war with King Teucer, who has promised to marry his daughter Iphise to King Anténor. Dardanus and Iphise meet through the intervention of the magician Isménor and fall in love. Dardanus attacks a monster ravaging Teucer's kingdom, saving the life of Anténor who is attempting, unsuccessfully, to kill it. Teucer and Dardanus make peace, the latter marrying Iphise. Background and performance history 1739 premiere Dardanus appeared at a time when the quarrel between Rameau's supporters and those of the operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully had become ever more embittered. Rameau's stage music had been controversial since his debut in 1733 with Hippolyte et Aricie. His opponents - the so-called lullistes - were conservatives who accused him of destroying the French operatic tradition established by Lully under King Louis XIV in the late 17th century. Yet they could not dissuade the Paris Opéra from offering Rameau commissions for new works. Hippolyte had been followed by Les Indes galantes in 1735 and Castor et Pollux in 1737. In 1739 the Opéra commissioned Rameau to write not one but two new scores, the opéra-ballet Les fêtes d'Hébé, which premiered on 21 May, and Dardanus. This could only inflame the controversy and there were many lullistes eager to see Rameau fail.