Platée

In a prologue that sets the scene for the action, Thespis, Momus and Thalie announce the subject of the play : a comedy mocking the folly of men… and telling the story of the trap set by Jupiter for Juno to cure her jealousy. The trap? To make the frog Platée believe that Jupiter is in love with her. Very official, Jupiter’s declaration of love to Plataea is transmitted by Mercury, faithful and reasonable messenger of the gods. When the God appears before Platée – first in the form of a donkey, then of an owl – the nymph calls the birds of her marsh, but they make Jupiter flee. Fortunately, the beautiful God returns at once and confesses his love for poor Platée : he even wants to marry her. However, in the middle of the wedding preparations, Juno, furious with jealousy, comes to interrupt the staging and urges Jupiter to go back to Heaven with her. Humiliated, Platée understands then the game of which she was the object. She returns to her swamps, under the ironic jeers of the chorus.
In this zany opera composed in 1745 for the wedding of the Dauphin Louis, son of Louis XV, and the infanta Maria Teresa of Spain, reputed to be ungainly, Jean-Philippe Rameau makes irony the master weapon of his score. Rameau’s musical invention bubbles up: each scene is an iconoclastic mix of arias, choruses and dances that populate a plot full of roles and twists.