On a  spring evening in 1743, a large crowd gathered at the Paris Opera for the premiere of Joseph Nicholas Pancrace Royer’s new opera-ballet, Le Pouvoir de l’Amour. The singers were the best in the company, befitting a musician of Royer’s stature. And the concert-goers awaited the overture with eager anticipation: the composer’s 1739 opera-ballet, Zaïde, had been a resounding success.

But the opening night audience was the largest Royer’s opera would see. The performance met with mixed reviews—though a critic described the music as “pleasing”—and the production closed after only 12 performances.

An 18th century annotation on the flyleaf of the copy of the score in the Arsenal library in Paris contains a well-phrased contemporary critique of Le Pouvoir de l'Amour. "The subject of the Prologue", says the writer, "is fine and noble.  The subjects of the three acts are a little metaphysical and subtle, with rather tangled plots, but there is much spirit in all this!"  The same anonymous librarian asserts that the libretto was actually written by the Abbé Voisenon, a member of the Academie Française, under the assumed name of Saint-Marc (Charles-Hugues Le Fèbvre de Saint-Marc, to whom the libretto is attributed in the 18th century newspaper the Mercure de France).

Neither the composer nor the librettist (whoever he may have been) of Le Pouvoir de l'Amour is exactly a household word today.  Why revive an unknown opera-ballet by a now little-known composer almost three centuries after its original production?  Such a thing certainly would not have been done fifty years ago, when early music performance was in its infancy and the only baroque instruments known to classical music audiences were the harpsichord, recorder and viola da gamba.  As the original instrument movement grew, and the number of accomplished performers increased,  musical works which had previously been known only to music historians were given a new lease on life.  Many of these works proved to be very beautiful.  Often the effectiveness of the music depends on appropriate style and sonority, and this is especially true in the field of French music. Now that works of Lully, Charpentier and Rameau have been performed and recorded by groups such as Les Arts Florissants and Les Musiciens du Louvre, musicologists and performers are turning their efforts to the study and revival of lesser-known composers such as Brossard and Mondonville, to name only two.

My interest in Royer, a contemporary of Rameau, began in 1979-1980, when I undertook a study of his harpsichord works which resulted in the critical edition of the Pièces de clavecin. While doing research for the edition, I found myself widening my investigation to include opera scores, since an important feature of the harpsichord book is the arrangement for keyboard of excerpts from Royer's operas.

I was drawn to Le Pouvoir de l'Amour because it contains the original version of one of Royer's most impressive harpsichord pieces, an Allemande in C minor.  In the third entrée of the opera, the princess of the savages, Marphise, is led in to be sacrificed to Apollo, to the accompaniment of the dramatic Marche pour le Sacrifice, while the chorus sings and the three main characters exchange exclamations.  This march became the harpsichord Allemande.

In his time, Royer was a successful composer and musician. And though today he is mostly known for his one book of harpsichord pieces, first published in 1746, his career was multifaceted.  His operas were performed in Paris and Versailles .  He was appointed music teacher to the children of Louis XV in 1734, co-director of the Concert Spirituel in 1748, and, finally, composer of music for the king's chamber and inspector general of the Opera in 1753-1754. While it is clear that he was a gifted composer who was always involved in writing, teaching, and conducting music, his talent for administration drew him into the organizational side of the business of music, where he excelled.  Royer's innovations at the Concert Spirituel revived public support of the flagging concert series, probably because his own interest in bringing Italian virtuosi and repertoire to France was in sympathy with the taste of the audience of the late 1740’s.

In the field of opera, the towering figure of Rameau, with his substantial output during these decades, tended to dwarf his contemporaries, Royer included, and to overshadow their operatic achievements.  It is inconceivable that the two would not have had substantial contact, working as they did in the same professional circles.  We even have evidence of one meeting between Rameau and Royer: a 1742 police report reveals a fight between the two “en plein café”.  If we are to believe a contemporary description of Royer as a man “d’un caractère aimable et de la plus grande politesse”("with a kindly personality, most well-bred and polite"), we may imagine that Rameau provoked the incident.

Royer’s reputation as an opera composer was largely based on the success of Zaïde, which was frequently revived after its première in 1739, remaining in the repertoire until the 1770’s. Perhaps Zaïde was more successful than Le Pouvoir de l'Amour because of changing tastes in France during the reign of Louis XV. The high drama of the tragédie lyrique, so beloved to the audiences of Lully's time, was rapidly falling out of favor.  Lighter fare was in fashion, and the massive second and third acts of Pouvoir recalled the scope of operas of an earlier time.  Le Pouvoir de l'Amour, like his harpsichord music, reveals Royer as a capable composer, caught in a changing musical world, writing in a style which had passed its peak.

In spite of tangled plots (and how many baroque operas are guilty of having ridiculously complicated plots?), I felt that today's audiences would be likely to appreciate the dramatic, colorful music of this opera-ballet, or ballet-héroique, as it is titled.  In our production, the theatrical balance has been improved by leaving out the second  entrée (a retelling of the story of King Midas, with an added love interest to link it to the general theme of the power of love). We have also taken a cue from several performance copies of the score and changed the order of the dances and choruses at the end of the opera (though not in exactly the same way).

I had expected to spend the 2000-2001 study year investigating the possibility of editing and performing some of Royer's non-keyboard works.  As it turned out, I was able to begin work on an edition of Le Pouvoir de l'Amour as an associate scholar at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in the fall of 2000.  This was largely due to the recent appointment at the CMBV of Gérard Geay, who agreed to compose the missing viola parts for the edition, as he has done for a number of editions and performances of French baroque works with missing components.

In the end, this production has proven to be collaborative on many levels.  First, the CMBV has assisted me in preparing a performing edition. The Centre also sent the invaluable Olivier Schneebeli to Oberlin to instruct the student chorus in French baroque style.  Second, this is a student/professional production.  We wanted a large baroque orchestra, and the band of 26 instrumentalists is about half students and half professionals.  Most of the professionals are alumni of Oberlin's Historical Performance program, who have come  from as far away as Amsterdam and Vienna to play in the opera.  Likewise, there are student and professional singers, and student and professional dancers. Catherine Turocy, true to her promise when she was in Oberlin in 1999 for a baroque dance residency, has created the choreography for the opera and brought members of the New York Baroque Dance Company to dance in the production.  We were fortunate to have Patricia Ranum donate her expertise in French rhetorical/musical declamation during the first week of Winter Term.  And finally, the project is a joint initiative of the Historical Performance Program, the Opera Theater department, and the Theater and Dance Program in the College of Arts and Sciences.

It has been an exciting and constantly challenging two years of preparation. We invite you to be diverted by the opera's tribute to the power of love, both eros and agape, and to enjoy the elegance, rich sonorities, complex textures and expressiveness of Royer's music.