Since its inception, French opera has embraced dance, yet all too often operatic dancing is treated as mere decoration. This book exposes the multiple and meaningful roles that dance has
played, starting from Jean-Baptiste Lully’s first opera in 1672. Itcounters prevailing notions in operatic historiography that dance was parenthetical and presents compelling evidence that the
divertissement is essential to understanding the work. The book considers the operas of Lully and the 46-year period between thedeath of Lully and the arrival of Rameau, when influences from
the commedia dell’arte and other theatres began to inflect French operatic practices. It explores the intersections of musical, textual, choreographic and staging practices at a complex
institution - the Academie Royale de Musique - which upheld as a fundamental aesthetic principle the integration of dance into opera.
