About the work
Tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts by Marin Marais to a libretto by Antoine Houdar de la Motte, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses; first performed on 18 February 1706 at the Paris Opéra in the Palais-Royal. The opera became Marais's greatest success on stage.
Plot
Céyx and Alcyone love each other, but dark powers thwart their wedding and force Céyx to flee across the sea, where his ship is wrecked in a storm. A prophetic dream reveals his death to Alcyone; in despair she tries to take her own life, but the sea god Neptune transforms both lovers into halcyon birds, uniting them forever.
Cultural significance
The opera's fame rests above all on the storm scene in Act Four, more than a hundred bars long, whose low string writing and timpani rolls make it one of the most striking depictions of nature in French Baroque opera and a model for others well into the 18th century. Revivals in 1730, 1741, 1756, 1757 and 1771 kept Alcione in the Paris Opéra's repertoire until the end of the Ancien Régime.