French opera
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French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen. Many foreign-born composers have played a part in the French tradition too, including Gluck, Cherubini, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Offenbach and Verdi.
French opera began at the court of King Louis XIV with Jean-Baptiste Lully's Cadmus et Hermione (1673) (although there had been various experiments with the form before that). Lully and his librettist Quinault created tragédie en musique, a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent.
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