Opera Lafayette Celebrates Rameau 350

The interview can be heard on WETA Virtuoso on the following times:

11/9/2026 2:59PM
11/10/2026 9:18AM
11/12/2026 4:57AM

The interview can also be heard on WETA VivaLaVoce on the following time:

11/13/2026 4PM

Last month the hot ticket in DC was Oliver Cotton’s play The Score, which took place in 1747. Ostensibly the origin story for Johann Sebastian Bach’s Musical Offering, its climactic scene depicted Bach confronting Frederick the Great about the brutal effects his military campaign had on ordinary citizens.

In the following year, 1748, the War of Austrian Succession finally ended with Aix-la-Chapelle, which also has connections to notable musical compositions. In England, Handel composed the Music for the Royal Fireworks to commemorate the event (and while its premiere resulted in war-like consequences that seemed at odds with its celebration of piece – a building burned down, at least five people suffered serious injuries, and it caused one of the first recorded traffic jams – everyone still liked the music.)

In France, meanwhile, King Louis XV’s illustrious mistress Madame de Pompadour was running her third season of opera and drama in a makeshift theater in her apartment at Versailles. The venue’s very limited seating made admission extremely coveted among the Parisian aristocracy, and while their desire to attend may have been driven by social status, they were from all reports performances of very high quality, including onstage appearances by the Madame herself.

The Aix-la-Chapelle treaty inspired her to commission the most successful living French composer at the time, Jean-Philippe Rameau, for an opera. While his works for the Paris Opéra could run three hours or more, for this occasion he provided a 90-minute work in a prologue and two acts, Les surprises de l'Amour. The one character who ties the work together is Cupid; in the prologue it is revealed that Vulcan’s arrows of war are transformed into Cupid’s arrows of love. The theme of the opera is that love is the rebuke to the cold-heartedness that leads to war – a powerful statement for a mistress to present to the King.

After its initial performance in Madame de Pompadour’s apartment, Les surprises de l'Amour was heavily revised and expanded for performance at the Paris Opéra, and all of its references to the peace treaty were cut. While this later version has been revived and recorded in modern times, the more intimate and philosophical original version has lain on the shelf – until now. Opera Lafayette is giving what it is billing as the “modern world premiere” of the original version of 1748.

I got to speak with Patrick Dupre Quigley, Opera Lafayette’s new artistic director, about this production and their Rameau350 project in a fascinating interview you can hear above.