ABSTRACT
The music criticism in the Mercure de France of the Rameau era should be read with an array of different but often overlapping considerations in mind. Although the Mercure had a clear mandate to inform, to educate and to entertain, issues were normally approved by a royal censor, and the journal’s editorial principles varied over a long and complex series of administrations. Fuzelier likely wrote at least some of the Mercure’s opera reviews even after La Roque was named sole beneficiary of the privilege in 1724. Although Fuzelier and La Bruère retained the privilege to publish the Mercure until their deaths, in 1752 and 1754 respectively, their joint editorship apparently ended in the late 1740s. Marie-Jeanne Chevalier was one lead singer of the Rameau era whose acting skills were frequently praised in the Mercure.
