Castor Et Pollux - Performance History and Reception

Performance History and Reception

Castor et Pollux appeared in 1737 while the controversy ignited by Rameau's first opera Hippolyte et Aricie was still raging. Conservative critics held the works of the "father of French opera", Jean-Baptiste Lully, to be unsurpassable. They saw Rameau's radical musical innovations as an attack on all they held dear and a war of words broke out between these Lullistes and the supporters of the new composer, the so-called Rameauneurs (or Ramistes). This controversy ensured that the premiere of Castor would be a noteworthy event.

Rameau had not altered the dramatic structure of Lully's tragédie lyrique genre: he retained the same five act format with the same types of musical numbers (overture, recitative, air, chorus, and dance suites). He had simply expanded the musical resources available to French opera composers. While some welcomed Rameau's new idiom, more conservative listeners found it unappealing. On the one hand, Rameau's supporter Diderot (who later turned his loyalty elsewhere) remarked: "Old Lulli is simple, natural, even, too even sometimes, and this is a defect. Young Rameau is singular, brilliant, complex, learned, too learned sometimes; but this is perhaps a defect on the listeners." On the other hand, the complaint of the Lullistes was that Rameau's musical idiom was far more expressive that Lully's and went so far as to call it distastefully "Italianate" (by French standard). For example, where Lully has contained musical expression, Rameau's recitative style included much wider melodic leaps in contrast to Lully's more declamatory style. This can be heard clearly, for example, in the opening recitative between Phoebe and Cleone (Phoebe's servant) in Act I, scene 1 of the 1754 revised version. Additionally, he added a richer harmonic vocabulary that included ninth chords. Rameau's more demanding vocal style led to the remark (thought to be made by Rameau himself) that while Lully's operas required actors, his required singers. Over time, these changes became more and more acceptable to the French audience.

As it turned out, the opera was a success. It received twenty performances in late 1737 but did not reappear until the substantially revised version took to the stage in 1754. This time there were thirty performances and ten in 1755. Graham Sadler writes that "It was Castor et Pollux that was regarded as Rameau's crowning achievement, at least from the time of its first revival (1754) onwards."

Revivals followed in 1764, 1765, 1772, 1773, 1778, 1779 and 1780. The taste for Rameau's operas did not long outlive the French Revolution but extracts from Castor et Pollux were still being performed in Paris as late as 1792. During the nineteenth century, the work did not appear on the French stage, though its fame survived the general obscurity into which Rameau's works had sunk; Hector Berlioz admiringly mentioned the aria Tristes apprêts.

The first modern revival took place at the Schola Cantorum in Paris in 1903. Among the audience was Claude Debussy.