Céphale et Procris (Grétry)

Céphale et Procris was first given at Versailles on 30 December 1773 as part of the royal wedding celebrations of the Comte d'Artois (the third grandson of King Louis XV) and Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy.

[1] Céphale et Procris was part of a movement to introduce a more Italianate style of writing recitative, arias and ensembles into serious French opera.

It thus has much in common with such contemporary works as Philidor's Ernelinde, princesse de Norvège (1767) and Gossec's Sabinus (1773), both of which were also played during the Comte d'Artois' wedding festivities.

[2] Although Marmontel described the opera as a ballet héroïque, the musicologist Benoït Dratwicki writes that Céphale et Procris does not really fit the genre as conceived earlier in the 18th century.

[3] Scene: A forest Procris is a nymph who once followed the goddess Diana but she abandoned this way of life after falling in love with the hunter Cephalus.