The Oberlin production of Le Pouvoir de L'Amour was an outgrowth of research on Royer undertaken by Lisa Goode Crawford, Professor of Harpsichord in the Historical Performance Program at the Oberlin Conservatory.  Royer’s harpsichord pieces are accessible to audiences through recent recordings and performances, but his operatic works are virtually unknown today. The French concert-going public has recently rediscovered its rich musical heritage through performances of French baroque music, including lavish stagings of operas previously known only from descriptions by music historians.  In the United States, however, staged performances of French baroque opera are rare.  This production will be the modern premiére of this opera.

The Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) assisted Crawford in preparing a performing edition of the opera, based on examination of the original scores. The missing viola parts have been restored by Gérard Geay.  For this production, Oberlin students will collaborate with professional performers – singers, instrumentalists, and dancers – some of them recent alumni of Oberlin's well-known Historical Performance program.  The project is a joint initiative of the Historical Performance Program, the Conservatory’s Opera Theater department, and the Theater and Dance Program in the College of Arts and Sciences; the New York Baroque Dance Company will create the choreography and take part in the production. 

With its elegance, rich sonorities, complex textures and expressiveness, the repertoire of eighteenth-century French music contains many treasures yet to be unearthed – this work among them.  The Oberlin production will add a "new" French baroque opera to those performed in the United States, and introduce many talented student musicians who will go on to future performances of French baroque music.