Les Indes Galantes

Les Indes galantes (French: “The Amorous Indies”) is a ballet héroïque by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier. The premiere, including only the prologue and the first two of its four entrées (acts), was staged by the Académie Royale de Musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on 23 August 1735, starring the leading singers of the Opéra, Marie Antier, Marie Pélissier (), Mlle Errémans, Mlle Petitpas, Denis-François Tribou, Pierre Jélyotte, and Claude-Louis-Dominique Chassé de Chinais, and the dancers Marie Sallé and Louis Dupré. Michel Blondy provided the choreography. The ballet's Premier Menuet was used in the soundtrack of the 2006 film Marie Antoinette.

On 25 November 1725, after French settlers in Illinois sent Chief Agapit Chicagou of the Metchigamea and five other chiefs to Paris, they met with Louis XV. Chicagou had a letter read pledging allegiance to the crown. They later danced three kinds of dances in the Théâtre-Italien, inspiring Rameau to compose his rondeau Les Sauvages.

The premiere met with a lukewarm reception from the audience and, at the third performance, a new entrée was added under the title Les Fleurs. However, this caused further discontent because it showed the hero disguised as a woman, which was viewed either as an absurdity or as an indecency. As a result, it was revised for the first time and this version was staged on 11 September. Notwithstanding these initial problems, the first run went on for twenty-eight performances between 23 August and 25 October, when, however, only 281 livres were grossed, the lowest amount ever collected at the box office by Les Indes galantes.

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