JEAN PHILIPPE RAMEAU.
From a lithograph at the Paris Opera Library, made after a drawing by E. Nesle.
At last, however, Rameau found the golden key which, so the proverb says, opens every door, even the door of the Opera, in the person of the great financier, M. de la Popelinière, whose wife was one of his pupils and took lessons on the harpsichord. M. de la Popelinière arranged a meeting at his house between the most illustrious Voltaire and Rameau, the humble aspirant to musical glory. Voltaire promised to write an opera for the protégé of the great Farmer-General, and this piece appears in the complete works of Voltaire under the title of “Samson.” The literary masterpiece of the great writer pleased Rameau greatly, and he set to work upon the accompanying music with great enthusiasm. When the score was finished the musician rendered it at de la Popelinière’s house, in presence of Voltaire and a chosen few. Rameau emerged from the ordeal triumphant; but, alas! there’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip. The director of the Académie de Musique would have nothing to do with the piece, which he considered unsuitable for the opera, because founded on a biblical subject. It is interesting to remember what Voltaire has written on this question.
“Rameau,” says he, in speaking of “Samson,” “Rameau, the greatest musician in France, set this opera to music about the year 1732. It was about to be produced, when the same cabal which at a later date succeeded in causing the representations of ‘Mahomet’ (one of Voltaire’s tragedies) to be suspended, prevented the production of ‘Samson’ at the Opéra.”
I do not know whether the cabal spoken of by the author of the “Dictionnaire Philosophique” was responsible in this matter. I should be inclined to think that the director of the Opéra simply took counsel with himself. Whatever the fact, Voltaire adds:
“And at the very time when permission was given for this piece (“Samson”) to be played at the Theatre of the Comédie Italienne, and when ‘Samson’ worked miracles conjointly with Arlequin, permission was not granted for the same subject to be represented in a noble and worthy manner at the Theatre of the Académie de Musique. Our musician has since made use of nearly all the airs in ‘Samson’ in other lyric compositions, which envy was unable to suppress.”
It is quite true that Rameau utilized, but long afterwards, a part of the music in “Samson” for his opera “Zoroastre.” This work was not his début at the opera. The composer appeared before the Académie de Musique with “Hippolyte et Aricie,” by the Abbé Pellegrin, a worldly abbé if there ever was one, and a great playwright, concerning whom these verses were written:
Le matin catholique et le soir idolâtre,
Il dîne de l’autel et soupe du théâtre.
M. de la Popelinière advanced 500 livres to the Abbé to secure him against the possible failure of the piece, and Rameau set to work again. This opera was given on the first of October, 1733. The composer attained renown in his fiftieth year: he was old in years but young in fame, as we have seen.