(Fr.).
A type of French Opéra-ballet during the reign of Louis XV, distinguished by having as its principal characters heroic, noble figures, often from antiquity, classical gods and goddesses, or exotic personages, rather than the comic bourgeois and tender heroines of other opéras-ballets. It also differs from the contemporary tragédie en musique in that the events portrayed are generally festive and gay, not dramatic and terrifying. While dance, of course, remains prominent, in some works there is greater use of vocal music than in other opéras-ballets.
The term is first used in the libretto of Fuzelier’s Les festes grecques et romaines, set by Collin de Blamont (1723). Among the most famous examples are those by Rameau, beginning with Les Indes galantes (1735). The last successful ballet-héroïque performed at the Paris Opéra was E.J. Floquet’s L’union de l’Amour et des arts (1773). The term was occasionally applied to a single entrée in an opéra-ballet (for example, to Euthyme et Lyris by L.-B. Desormery in 1776).
For bibliography see Opéra-ballet.
M. ELIZABETH C. BARTLET