Jean-Philippe Rameau : Les Indes Galantes

   in Early Music Today (Mar, 2015)
You might almost say Les Indes galantes arrived in instalments. The premiere, in August 1735, comprised a prologue and two entrees: Ramaeau almost immediately appended a third (Les Fleurs), but it featured a prince disguised as a woman, which so scandalised people it had to be rewritten. In March 1736 he added a fourth entree, Les Sauvages, and the popularity of its Danse du grand calumet de paix, finally secured the work’s success.

Les Indes galantes is an opera-ballet, with separate, self-contained acts, so Rameau was able to set each entree in a distant land, thus appealing to a French fascination with the exotic and allowing him to orchestrate …