About the work
Issé is a pastorale héroïque by André Cardinal Destouches to a libretto by Antoine Houdar de la Motte, based on the story of Apollo and the nymph Issé from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was first given at Fontainebleau on 7 October 1697 for the wedding of the Duke of Burgundy to Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, followed shortly by performances at the court in Versailles and, at the end of December, at the Paris Opera. In 1708 Destouches expanded the originally three-act work to five acts.
Plot
The god Apollo, disguised as a shepherd, courts the nymph Issé, who is promised to the shepherd Philémon; mistaken identities, jealousy and divine intervention eventually bring the pastoral love story to a reconciled ending.
Cultural significance
Louis XIV is said to have declared that no music had given him such pleasure since Lully; the work became one of the greatest stage successes of eighteenth-century France and remained in the repertoire at Versailles and the Paris Opera until 1773.