Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste
(1670–1741)> LIBRETTIST
Rousseau, Jean-Baptiste (6 April 1670, Paris; 17 March 1741, Brussels), librettist, was the son of a shoemaker who gave each of his two sons an excellent education despite his modest station in life. Contemporary gossip asserted that Jean-Baptiste ignored his father as soon as fortune smiled upon him, and the poet’s future enemies never lost an opportunity to recall his filial ingratitude. Rousseau started his career in the theatre with a comedy entitled Le Café (1694), but the public did not…