Opéra-ballet

Opéra-ballet was a musical form of theatrical entertainment that grew out of the ballets à entrées of the early seventeenth century; it enjoyed its greatest growth and popularity in the first half of the eighteenth century. L’Europe galante of 1697 is considered to be the first fully developed opéra-ballet, but Les Saisons of 1695 is so typical of the genre that it is mentioned as the most distinct prototype of this sort of composition. The importance of the dance in these works led many…