Linus (opera)

Rameau finished the score by November and Linus went into rehearsal at the house of the Marquise de Villeroy[2] on 10 May 1751.

[3] In Sylvie Bouissou's opinion, Rameau intended Linus as a successor to his tragédie en musique Zoroastre (1749).

Revision proved difficult as La Bruère had left for Rome; the writer Charles Collé later claimed that he wanted to take over this task.

Years later, Rameau's admirer Jacques-Joseph-Marie Decroix wrote that the manuscript score was "lost or stolen" from the Marquise de Villeroy's house during confusion caused by an "illness" and only the part for the violin was left.

The illness to which Decroix refers was probably Rameau's rather than Madame de Villeroy's as the composer is known to have been seriously indisposed in early 1751.

[5][6] Decroix suggested an alternative theory in which Rameau deliberately refused to stage Linus rather than compromise his artistic integrity: "Who knows if these supposed faults [in the fifth act] were not the unusual beauties of which Rameau was fond, and that the busybodies [importuns] who wanted to make him change them did not make him decide to suppress the whole opera?

"[7] Around 1770 Antoine Dauvergne planned to set La Bruère's libretto in collaboration with Jean-Claude Trial and Pierre Montan Berton.

It was rescheduled for the following year and went into rehearsal on 4 April 1771 but was never staged because of problems with the fifth act and was replaced by Monsigny's Aline, reine de Golconde.

In her anger, Théano causes the garden to burst into flames but Linus prays to Apollo and the god extinguishes the fire.