ABSTRACT
The number of people who expressed their views on French opera, in print, letters or diaries, was legion. Right from the time that Cardinal Mazarin's attempt in the 1640s to foster a taste for Italian opera in Paris came to grief, French writers looked over their shoulders at Italian musical style and the perceived threat that it posed. The public arrives at the theatre already predisposed towards or against the opera; even before the curtain rises, emissaries are praising it or tearing it to shreds. Public opinion as expressed in the theatre could determine the fate of an opera, a production or a performer. Source materials show the gradual changes that were introduced, especially in the 1740s and later – the abandonment of the prologue, proliferations of additional dances and accompaniments – but the best Lully-Rameau operas and a few written by his successors could still generate enthusiasm and critical debate decades after his death.