Les Paladins
opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Les Paladins is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 12 February 1760 at the Paris Opera. The author of the libretto is not known for sure but was probably one of the Duplat de Monticourt brothers. Rameau called Les Paladins a comédie lyrique, putting it in the same category as his earlier work Platée.
Authorship of the libretto
The identity of the librettist is uncertain. In the 18th century, Charles Collé relayed the rumour that the author was Gentil-Bernard. However, Les spectacles de Paris of 1770 and, later, Louis-François Beffara claimed the text was by Duplat de Monticourt, without specifying whether this meant Jean-François Duplat de Monticourt or his brother Pierre-Jacques. In her 2014 biography of the composer, the Rameau specialist Sylvie Bouissou inclines slightly to the belief it was Pierre-Jacques, given his greater experience of writing for the theatre.
The plot is based on a verse tale by Jean de la Fontaine, Le petit chien qui secoue de l'argent et des pierreries (The Little Dog shaking Money and Gems), itself derived from an episode in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.
Roles
Synopsis
Act 1
Scene: An old castle near a forest
Argie is in love with the paladin Atis. But her guardian, Anselme, wants to marry her himself and is holding Argie captive along with her friend Nérine.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3234424. VIAF identifies the subject as 182197492. The Library of Congress control number is nr2004014208. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1760, 1770 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Les Paladins” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.