Les fêtes vénitiennes

According to the usage of the time, it was originally simply billed as a "ballet",[2] but it is one of the most important and successful instances of the new genre later classified by scholars as opéra-ballet, which had become popular in Paris around the end of the 17th century.

[3] At the beginning of the 18th century, the Paris Opéra public was growing dissatisfied with the traditional "operatic fare consisting of lyric tragedies cast invariably in the mould created by Lully and Quinault",[4] and the innovative nature of the opéra-ballet, with its realistic locations and characters, and its comic plots, was seen as a viable alternative.

The format of the new genre was exceedingly flexible: each entrée had its own independent intrigue and characters, and the various acts were loosely linked together by a tenuous thread (in Les festes vénitiennes, the Venice location).

[3] Campra and Danchet's opera proved incredibly popular from the beginning, and, through a trial and error approach, "it perpetuated itself to the point where new entrées were written to replace the acts that seemed to be losing their appeal".

After its unprecedented success in 1710-1711, the opera was regularly revived over the next half-century (in 1712, 1713, 1721, 1731-1732, 1740, 1750-1751 and 1759), the different entrées being swapped around at various times, and provided ample opportunity for almost all the major artists who appeared on the stage of the Paris Opéra in this period.