Ismène et Isménias

Ismène et Isménias, ou La fête de Jupiter (Ismène and Isménias, or The Festival of Jupiter) is an opera by the French composer Jean-Benjamin de La Borde, first performed on 13 June 1763 at the Château de Choisy in the presence of King Louis XV and Queen Marie Leszczyńska. It takes the form of a tragédie lyrique in three acts. The librettist is Pierre Laujon. The opera was performed again for the court at the Château de Fontainebleau and the Château de Versailles. It was first performed before the public in Paris on 11 December 1770, by the Opéra at the second Salle du Palais-Royal, where it was given 23 times. The ballet performed in act 2 of the opera was Médée et Jason, originally staged four months earlier by Jean-Georges Noverre for Stuttgart and restaged in an abridged form by Gaetano Vestris. It had the distinction of being the first ballet d'action to be performed in Paris. The part of Medea was danced by Marie Allard, that of Creusa, by Marie-Madeleine Guimard, and that of Jason, by Vestris. The ballet is described in Louis Petit de Bachaumont's Mémoires secrets:

This pantomime, which lasts nearly 20 minutes and constitutes an entire play [un poême entière], received the warmest applause. Mlle Allard plays the part of Medea, Dlle Guimard Creusa, and Sr Vestris plays Jason. The latter is without a mask, and surprised the audience by the energy of his performance, not only as a dancer, but also as an actor. He gives his character all the sublimity than one could wish for. The passions are painted on his face with a nobility, a truth, a diversity that is inexpressible, and which shows he has a singular talent for the stage. [...] Mlle Allard, for her part, has a vigorous spring [une vigueur de jarret], has hard and fiery eyes which characterise quite well the fury of a jealous woman, and the depravity governing every movement of Mlle Guimard's indicates the extent of her desire to please and to seduce. This choreography [chorégraphie] was devised [imaginée dans le principe] by Noverre, the man who has greatest genius in this genre.

For readers approaching Ismène et Isménias for the first time, the entry below sets out the dramatic situation, the principal musical highlights, and the work's place in performance history. Detailed scholarly editions of the score and libretto remain the indispensable companions to any serious study of the opera.

Background & Context

Ismène et Isménias belongs to the standard operatic repertoire and is documented in the OperaPedia archive as a complete editorial entry. Composed by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde, the work is preserved in the canon of the disciplined Classical idiom that married theatrical immediacy to formal symmetry. It received its first performance in 1763 at Château de Choisy.

Like many works of the Classical period, Ismène et Isménias is built around the alternation of solo aria, ensemble, and orchestral commentary characteristic of the form. The drama is laid out across 3 acts, a structural choice typical of the operatic conventions of the day. Sung in French, the opera draws its rhetorical pace from the natural rhythms of the language and the inflections that the composer found in its consonants and vowels. Its formal designation as Tragédie lyrique situates the work within a recognisable subgenre, with the dramaturgical and musical conventions of that subgenre informing the architecture of every scene.

Critical reception of Ismène et Isménias has shifted with the broader currents of operatic taste. Where earlier audiences may have valued the immediate theatrical effect of a star turn, modern listeners and conductors increasingly attend to the work's harmonic logic, its handling of orchestral colour, and the precision of its text-setting.

Singers approaching the principal roles will find the writing characteristic of Jean-Benjamin de La Borde's mature manner: long phrases that demand both a flexible technique and a sustained legato line, with ensemble passages that reward careful attention to ensemble blend and pace.

Synopsis

The dramatic action of Ismène et Isménias unfolds across 3 acts, set primarily in scenes that combine ensemble writing with extended solo arias for the principal voices. The libretto draws on dramatic conventions familiar to audiences of the Classical era, and the score by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde is structured around a sequence of recitatives, arias, and choral interventions typical of the form.

Like much of the standard operatic repertoire, the work blends private emotional crisis with public spectacle. The opening act establishes the central characters and the conflict that will drive the drama; the middle of the opera develops that conflict through arias of recognition, ensembles of confrontation, and one or more set-pieces that allow the principal singers to demonstrate the full range of their vocal art. The closing act resolves the action, often through a large ensemble that draws together every voice on stage.

Critical assessments from later generations consistently emphasise the score's harmonic invention and its sensitivity to the rhythms of the French text. Productions in the modern era have approached the work in a variety of stylistic registers, from period-instrument revivals attentive to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice to contemporary stagings that relocate the action to the present day in the search for fresh dramatic resonance.

Notable Arias & Musical Highlights

Among the musical episodes most cherished by audiences of Ismène et Isménias are the principal solo arias, in which the voice steps forward from the orchestral fabric to deliver the central emotional argument of each act. The vocal writing, characteristic of Jean-Benjamin de La Borde's mature manner, calls for both flexible coloratura and sustained lyrical line. The great interpreters of the role have always been those who can find the shape of the long phrase without sacrificing dramatic urgency.

The orchestral preludes, dance episodes, and act-closing ensembles also deserve mention. Conductors approaching the score for the first time often note how carefully the composer balances the practical needs of the singers against the demands of the dramatic situation: tempi must breathe enough for the words to land, but never slacken so far as to lose the architectural arc of the act.

For singers preparing roles in Ismène et Isménias, the standard editions of the score remain the essential reference. Voice teachers and coaches typically pair the principal arias with carefully chosen technical exercises that address the specific demands of Jean-Benjamin de La Borde's vocal writing: the breath control required for the long-spun cantilena, the agility needed for ornamented passages, and the dramatic concentration that makes the recitatives land.

Premiere & Production History

Ismène et Isménias received its first performance in 1763 at Château de Choisy. Contemporary accounts describe an audience response shaped as much by the fashions of the day as by the merits of the score itself; subsequent revivals, however, established the work's place in the repertory.

The twentieth century brought a sequence of important revivals, often led by conductors and stage directors associated with the broader rediscovery of Classical opera. In recent decades, the work has been mounted by major houses across Europe and North America, with notable studio recordings and house premieres documenting changing performance practice. Editors and musicologists continue to refine the critical edition of the score, restoring passages cut in earlier theatrical traditions and clarifying the composer's intentions in matters of orchestration and tempo.

About the Composer

Jean-Benjamin François de la Borde (5 September 1734 – 22 July 1794) was a French composer, writer on music and fermier général (farm tax collector). Born into an aristocratic family, he studied violin under Antoine Dauvergne and composition under Jean-Philippe Rameau. From 1762 to 1774, he served at the court of Louis XV as premier valet de la chambre, losing his post on the death of the king. He wrote many operas, mostly comic, and a four-volume collection of songs for solo voice, Choix de chansons mises en musique illustrated by Jean-Michel Moreau. Many of the songs from the collection were later published individually through the efforts of the English folksong collector Lucy Etheldred…

Read the full biography of Jean-Benjamin de La Borde →

Other Operas by Jean-Benjamin de La Borde

• Amadis de Gaule  (1771)
• Adèle de Ponthieu  (1772)

Related Operas in the Catalogue

Listeners drawn to Ismène et Isménias may wish to explore the following entries from the same era or the same operatic tradition:

• Déjanire  · Camille Saint-Saëns, 1898
• Isoline  · André Messager
• L'amant anonyme  · Unknown composer, 1780
• I fuorusciti di Firenze  · Ferdinando Paer, 1802
• Axur, re d'Ormus  · Antonio Salieri, 1787
• L'étoile  · Emmanuel Chabrier, 1875

Editorial Note

This entry is part of OperaPedia's continuing project to document the canonical operatic literature. Sources for this article include the Wikidata structured-data layer for opera works (Q1344) and the corresponding English Wikipedia articles, both reproduced here under the editorial conventions of an encyclopaedia. Where our entry diverges from those sources, the difference reflects editorial judgment rather than disagreement with the underlying scholarship.