Pastorale héroïque was a type of ballet héroïque, a form of the opéra-ballet

Opéra-ballet

Opéra-ballet was a popular genre of French Baroque opera, "that grew out of the ballets à entrées of the early seventeeth century". It differed from the more elevated tragédie en musique as practised by Jean-Baptiste Lully in several ways...

 genre of French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

. The first work to bear the name was Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

's final completed opera Acis et Galatée

Acis et Galatée

Acis et Galatée is an opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Unlike most of his operas, which are designated tragédies en musique, Lully called this work a pastorale-héroïque, because it was on a pastoral theme and had only three acts compared to the usual five...

(1686), although musical works on pastoral themes had already appeared on the French stage. The pastorale héroique usually drew on Classical subject matter associated with pastoral poetry. Like the tragédie en musique, it had an allegorical prologue; however, its structure consisted of three acts, rather than the five of the tragédie en musique. Later examples were written by Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

; these include Zaïs

Zaïs

Zaïs is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 29 February 1748 at the Opéra in Paris. It takes the form of a pastorale héroïque in four acts and a prologue. The librettist was Louis de Cahusac....

(1748) and Naïs

Naïs

Naïs is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau first performed on 22 April 1749 at the Opéra in Paris. It takes the form of a pastorale héroïque in three acts and a prologue. The librettist was Louis de Cahusac, in the fourth collaboration between him and Rameau...

(1749).

Sources

• Sadie, Stanley ed. (1992), 'Pastorale-héroïque' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  , ISBN 0-333-73432-7