François Rebel

François Rebel, known as Rebel the younger to distinguish him from his father, Jean-Fery Rebel, was one of the central figures of Parisian musical life in the eighteenth century. He was born and died in Paris, in 1701 and 1775 respectively, and held prominent posts at the Opéra and in the court's musical institutions. His name is almost always linked with that of his friend François Francoeur, with whom he shared a career and much of his stage output.

In 1714 he joined the orchestra of the Académie Royale and, in 1717, obtained the reversion of the post his father held among the 24 Violins. In 1723 he travelled with Francoeur to Prague to witness the coronation of Emperor Charles VI, an occasion on which he heard Fux's opera Costanza e Fortezza alongside Tartini and Quantz. From then on the two musicians worked almost inseparably: they played violin duets at the Concert Spirituel in 1726 and jointly premiered the tragédie lyrique Pirame et Thisbé, nicknamed 'L'opéra des enfants' because of its authors' youth. Rebel was also the sole author of a heroic pastoral premiered at the Académie Royale in 1733 to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin.

His administrative career grew steadily over the years. He married twice, in 1733 and again after being widowed, and in 1734 succeeded André Cardinal Destouches as superintendent of the king's chamber music. That same year he was appointed head of the Concert Spirituel and, together with Francoeur, served as inspector of the Académie Royale between 1743 and 1753. He directed the Opéra from 1739 to 1748, succeeding his father, and in 1757 the king granted the two of them the theatre's licence for thirty years. In 1760 Louis XV ennobled him, and he received the distinction of Knight of the Order of Saint Michael. However, financial, administrative and aesthetic difficulties, the last of these linked to the Querelle des Bouffons, brought the licence to an end in April 1767. In 1772 the king asked him to return to the Opéra as general administrator, a post he gave up a few months before his death.

The joint work of Rebel and Francoeur consists chiefly of stage pieces: operas, ballets and divertissements. Both claimed that each piece belonged to them both, and it is difficult to separate their contributions; La Borde attributed the 'morceaux de force' to Rebel and the 'morceaux de sentiment' to Francoeur, though this is only the opinion of a contemporary. Both remained faithful to the French operatic tradition of Lully and Rameau, and their works enjoyed success, as shown by the 33 consecutive performances of Scanderberg. Rebel composed few works on his own, and his reputation rests above all on his brilliant career as a theatre director.