ABSTRACT
Rameau was depicted by his contemporaries as a violent individual who was heavy-handed with his librettists and had little interest in the literary texts he set. Nowadays, however, his collaboration especially with Louis de Cahusac has attracted fresh attention, revealing the composer to be receptive to the ideas of his most faithful librettist. Cahusac’s various theoretical writings emphasize this taste for expressive and dramatic dance, which the author distinguishes from danse simple. He developed the usage of two categories of elements: the dramatic and the decorative. The origins of this acte de ballet remain equally obscure. The sole source is the autograph manuscript. From the presence of a ritournelle at the start of its opening scene, the work was evidently conceived as an entrée for a ballet rather than as an autonomous acte de ballet.
