Paris hosted the fully staged premiere of Antonia Bembo’s opera “Ercole Amante” (“Hercules in Love”) at the Opéra Bastille last month, more than three centuries after the work was composed. The production’s opening night was postponed by two days due to a strike by opera personnel.

Originally written in 1707 for Louis XIV, the opera had never been performed in Bembo’s lifetime, and its historical staging marks a significant rediscovery in Baroque opera. The narrative revolves around the mythological Hercules, an aging demigod who desires his son’s fiancée, Iole, and is aided by the goddess Venus in his pursuit. The goddess Juno intervenes to protect Iole, setting in motion the characteristic intricate plotlines of Baroque opera.

Bembo, a Venetian-born composer and accomplished singer, studied under Francesco Cavalli, a leading figure in 17th-century Venetian opera. Her own life was marked by personal struggles; she petitioned for divorce from an abusive nobleman before finding refuge at the court of Louis XIV in Paris. Why Louis XIV commissioned Bembo to reimagine the same libretto used by Cavalli nearly half a century earlier remains unclear. Leonardo García-Alarcón, an Argentine conductor and Baroque specialist who discovered the score at the Bibliothèque Nationale in 2014, speculated the king sought innovation near the end of his reign and viewed the work as reflecting his own life.

García-Alarcón unearthed the score during research on musical programs related to Louis XIV and described the find as a major surprise, citing Bembo’s unique blend of French and Italian Baroque styles. The opera had been presented in smaller concert forms in Stuttgart (2023) and San Francisco (2025) before the full-scale Paris production.

The Paris Opera’s director, Alexander Neef, quickly recognized the work’s significance after hearing excerpts. He joined García-Alarcón in enlisting director Netia Jones, known for her multimedia approach and innovative designs, to helm the production. Jones noted that Bembo was only the second female composer to have a work performed at the Paris Opera in modern times.

The production embraced both the Baroque aesthetic and contemporary theatrical technology, utilizing projections and rapid scene changes within the expansive Opéra Bastille space. Scenes ranged from a formal French garden to an underground tomb and incorporated stylized choreography, reflecting the opera’s original grandeur conceived for the Salle de Machines, a vast 17th-century theater.

Interpreters highlighted the opera’s themes of power, coercion, and consent, which resonated with modern audiences and performers alike. Ana Vieira Leite, who portrayed Iole, emphasized the opera’s exploration of abuse of power, while bass-baritone Andreas Wolf found appeal in the opera’s historical context and character portrayal challenges. The singing, although demanding in its rapid recitatives and poetic Italian libretto, was not deemed overly difficult by the cast.

Critical reception of the premiere was mixed. Some praised the score’s virtuosity and playful elements, alongside the production’s subversion of traditional heroic narratives through the empowerment of female characters. Others critiqued the length of recitatives and perceived a lack of dramatic tension compared to Cavalli’s earlier “Ercole Amante.”

García-Alarcón defended Bembo’s position in the Baroque repertoire, noting her innovative synthesis of French harmonic richness and Italian rhythmic complexity. He pointed out that following the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, French opera saw little originality until Rameau’s emergence three decades later, with Bembo’s work standing as a unique and important bridge in that period.