' is an opera by the French composer

Louis Lacoste Louis Lacoste (April 3, 1798 – November 26, 1878) was a Quebec notary and political figure. He was a Conservative member of the Senate of Canada from 1867 to 1878. He was born in Boucherville in 1798. He studied law and became a notary, p ...

, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the

Paris Opera The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be ...

) on 20 October 1705. It takes the form of a ''

tragédie en musique Tragédie en musique (, ''musical tragedy''), also known as tragédie lyrique (, ''lyric tragedy''), is a genre of French opera introduced by Jean-Baptiste Lully and used by his followers until the second half of the eighteenth century. Operas in t ...

'' in a prologue and five acts. The libretto, by

Pierre-Charles Roy Pierre-Charles Roy (1683 — 23 October 1764) was a French poet and man of letters, noted for his collaborations with the composers François Francoeur and André Cardinal Destouches, to produce librettos for several opera-ballets, on classical su ...

, is based on the story of

Philomela Philomela () or Philomel (; grc-gre, , ; ) is a minor figure in Greek mythology who is frequently invoked as a direct and figurative symbol in literary and artistic works in the Western canon. Family Philomela was the younger of two daugh ...

as told in

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...

''.

Sources

Libretto at "Livrets baroques"

Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse ''Dictionnaire des Opéras'', Paris, 1881
page 530 French-language operas Tragédies en musique Operas by Louis Lacoste Operas 1705 operas Operas based on Metamorphoses {{french-opera-stub