Fêtes d'Hébé; ou, Les talents liriques, ballet, mis en musique par M. Rameau, et réprésenté pour la premiere fois, par l'Académie Royale de Musique, au mois de May 1739

Rameau, Jean Philippe (1683-1764) À Paris: Chez l'Auteur..., La Veuve Boivin..., M. Le Clair... Avec Approbation et Privilège du Roy, (1739) First edition Jean Philippe Rameau became perhaps the most lauded composer in his day and is the most recognized composer of his era today. He established himself first as a theorist, but his love was for the stage, which he turned to at the age of fifty. Les Fêtes d'Hébé was first performed at the Paris Opera on the 21st of May, 1739. The loose storyline follows Hébé's distaste for the amorous goings-on of heaven and her determination to find out whether the situation isn't better on Earth. The piece, Rameau's fourth work for the stage, was a great success, a musical painting a la Watteau's shepherds, sylvans, and fauns - highly ornamented and graciously stylized. Les Fêtes was performed nearly four hundred times after its premiere