Les élémens

Les élémens (The Elements), or Ballet des élémens, is an opéra-ballet by the French composers André Cardinal Destouches and Michel Richard Delalande (or de Lalande). It has a prologue and four entrées. The libretto was written by Pierre-Charles Roy.

Destouches was responsible for most of the music. It has never been ascertained how much each composer contributed to the composition. In a 1726 letter, Destouches wrote to Antonio I, Prince of Monaco: "We were ordered to work in partnership; he [Delalande] wrote very fine things whose details I implore you to spare me, for he demanded of me that we should be covered by the same cloak". Delalande probably wrote the overture, much of the prologue and some parts of the first entrée. Jean Balon provided the choreography.

Les élémens has the typical structure of the opéra-ballet: its four entrées are musically and dramatically independent, but topically related to one another. Its subject matter, however – gods, heroes and ancient Romans – relates it more to the special type of opéra-ballet called "ballet-héroïque".

The opera was first performed at the Tuileries, Paris on 31 December 1721, with the 11-year-old Louis XV participating in the dancing. It was revived by the Paris Opera at the Palais-Royal theatre from 29 May 1725, with increasing success, the degree of which "may be gauged by the fact that it remained in the repertory for more than 50 years and was revived in 1727, 1734, 1742, 1767, 1771, 1776, 1778, and 1780", and that it inspired "three parodies: Momus exilé (1725) at the Théâtre des Italiens; Le chaos (1725) at the same theatre; Il était temps (1754) at the Saint-Laurent fair". It was also revived at Madame de Pompadour's Théâtre des Petits Appartements, on the Grand Escalier des Ambassadeurs in the Palace of Versailles, on 23 December 1748, in which Madame de Pompadour herself performed.

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