Jean-Philippe Rameau was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer of his time for the harpsichord, alongside François Couperin.
Jean-Philippe Rameau, by Jacques Aved, 1728
The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760
Jean-Philippe Rameau in the timeline of French Baroque Composers.
French opera is both the art of opera in France and opera in the French language. It is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Messiaen. Many foreign-born composers have played a part in the French tradition, including Lully, Gluck, Salieri, Cherubini, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Offenbach.
The Salle Le Peletier, home of the Paris Opera during the middle of the 19th century
Jean-Baptiste Lully, the "Father of French Opera"
A performance of Lully's opera Armide at the Palais-Royal in 1761
Jean-Philippe Rameau, the eighteenth-century innovator
