Dardanus opera

Dardanus is a tragédie lyrique in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The French libretto was by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère.

It was first performed by the Académie de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on 19 November 1739. It received 26 performances, mainly because of the support from Rameau's followers in the dispute between the styles of Rameau and Lully.

Critics accused Rameau's original opera of lacking a coherent plot. The inclusion of the sea monster also violated the French operatic convention of having a clear purpose for encounters with supernatural beings.

In 1744 (with help from Simon-Joseph Pellegrin), and again in 1760, Dardanus was revised extensively in an attempt to correct its shortcomings. Large portions of the score were sacrificed in favour of plot but some scenes as arresting as the "Prison scene" (1744) were added in the process.

Dardanus was produced three times in the 20th century: in 1907 at the Opéra de Dijon, in 1979 at the Opéra de Paris, and finally in 1998, in a concert version, at the time of a recording (below) by Marc Minkowski. Another recent production is by Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux (2015)

The American professional premiere, by the Wolf Trap Opera Company directed by Chuck Hudson, was given in July 2003 at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in suburban Virginia. The opera was also produced in Sydney in November-December 2005, by Pinchgut Opera and the Orchestra of the Antipodes, The Royal Academy of Music also staged Dardanus in London in 2006. In France it was revived again in October-November 2009, at Lille, Caen and Dijon, conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm and staged by Claude Buchvald.

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