Perhaps Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Devin du Village has been waiting just
for you for two centuries at the Theatre de la Reine at the Petit
Trianon. On September 19, 1780, Marie-Antoinette was on stage, in
costume, and was acting with her troop of aristocrats in front of a
public of close friends. That evening, she was singing the role of
Colette, the heroine of this one act opera composed in 1753 by the
philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, perhaps the most celebrated work of
its time. That exceptional evening, a veritable fantasy of the Queens
who imagined that she was a shepherdess, has been resuscitated under the
direction of Sebastien dHerin in a costumed reconstitution, staged in
the original historic sets.
