Jean-Philippe Rameau was already 50 years old when he wrote his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, in 1733. And although Jean-Baptiste Lully — whose name was synonymous with French opera at the time — had died decades previously in 1687, the premiere sparked a fierce dispute between conservative ‘Lullistes’ and admirers of Rameau’s bold modern style. While the former found his harmonies too dissonant and his break with tradition scandalous, the latter were excited by the innovations that Rameau had derived from his years of inquiry into music theory and aesthetics.
Les Indes galantes received its premiere in 1735 and was followed two years later by the tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux — Rameau’s third completed opera. The premiere at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris was eagerly anticipated, not least because the mythical story of the two Dioscuri represented a novelty for the lyric stage at that time. Rameau himself probably suggested the subject to the writer Pierre-Joseph Bernard, who penned his very first libretto for Castor et Pollux. The titular brothers, the mortal Castor and the immortal Pollux, are both in love with Télaïre, who favours Castor. However, before the opera’s action begins, Castor is murdered. Pollux receives permission from his father Jupiter to free his brother from the Underworld and reunite him with Télaïre, but must give up his own immortality in exchange. Pollux now faces an inner struggle between his brotherly loyalty to Castor and his desire for Télaïre. In Castor et Pollux, Rameau combined all the compositional elements for which he was equally renowned and controversial. Each dramatic situation is musically illustrated to impressive effect — through rich harmonic textures, varied timbres and sometimes highly virtuosic vocal lines.