Performed only once in 1745, but full of exquisite music waiting for rediscovery: Rameau’s “Les Fêtes de Ramire”.

The single performance of the ballet “Les Fêtes de Ramire” took place on 22 December 1745 at the Versailles court. The work is certainly not one of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s best-known compositions. And this is for good reason: although it consists mainly of music by Rameau, it is in fact an arrangement of the divertissement from “La Princesse de Navarre”, the premiere of which had also taken place some months earlier on 23 February 1745 also at court. Voltaire modified the libretto, as did Jean-Jacques Rousseau to a lesser extent, who also adapted the music. According to Rousseau, Rameau was content to see the final result at the last minute, without having had the time to compose additional music, notably a new Overture.

All of Rameau’s pieces which were included in “Les Fêtes de Ramire” therefore come from “La Princesse de Navarre”; but not all the pieces from “La Princesse de Navarre” were included in “Les Fêtes de Ramire”. It was presumably Voltaire himself who omitted those passages which were too closely linked to the original plot; for the new connecting scenes he devised a plot which inevitably turned out to be shorter (it contains fewer than sixty verses!). Based on the everyday theme of love between two enemies and a genuine exoticism, it was nevertheless entirely original: Fatime, the Princess of Granada (a Muslim), has been taken prisoner by Alphonse, the King of Castille (a Catholic); but Alphonse’s son Ramire is in love with Fatime and frees her.

But why was Rousseau commissioned to set Voltaire’s new text, and not Rameau? According to Rousseau’s “Confessions”, it emerges that Rameau was too preoccupied by his opera “Le Temple de la Gloire” in autumn 1745 (already published in the “Opera omnia Rameau”), which was in fact performed on 27 November and 4 December at court and from 7 December 1745 at the Académie royale de musique. Perhaps it was rather more thanks to a scandal that Rousseau was chosen for this task by the Duke de Richelieu – in that year he was the patron of all works performed at Versailles: in the autumn, Rousseau was able to present his opera “Les Muses galantes” to Richelieu at a rehearsal. Also present was Rameau, who became angry and publicly criticised Rousseau as an amateur and plagiarist. It can be assumed that because of Rameau’s hostility, “Les Muses galantes” was rejected, but that as a result, the Duke de Richelieu thought of Rousseau when it came to arranging “Les Fêtes de Ramire”. Perhaps a kind of consolation prize for Rousseau?

However, there is one disputed point in the history of “Les Fêtes de Ramire”: noting that this work had the same Overture as “La Princesse de Navarre”, critics accused Rousseau of lying. By contrast, we believe that it was his own Overture, which was found in the manuscript (now unfortunately missing), which presumably served as the score for the production of both works. In the only surviving source of “Les Fêtes de Ramire”, an authoritative manuscript copy, a few intermediate parts in the C clef are notated on the third line in the Overture, like all Rousseau’s other additions in “Les Fêtes de Ramire” and as everywhere else in his extensive musical output; by contrast, Rameau always notated the hautes-contre and the tailles de violon in the C clef on the first and second lines. In subsequent revivals of “La Princesse de Navarre” (1763 in Bordeaux; 1769 at court, where the piece was a failure) the vocal pieces belonging to “Les Fêtes de Ramire” were omitted, but this instrumental piece by Rousseau was retained.

It is also a fact that the performance of 1745, comprising fragments, met with little response, as did the first published edition of “Les Fêtes de Ramire” in the complete edition of 1906 edited by Camille Saint-Saëns. However, the work deserves better than falling completely into oblivion: no doubt Voltaire found his libretto “miserable”, and the few minutes of Rousseau’s music will only arouse curiosity; but the frequency of exceptional pieces by Rameau – many of which he incidentally used in his later works – can only serve to encourage performances of the work.

Julien Dubruque
(from [t]akte 2/2025)
(translation: Elizabeth Robinson)