He developed Lully's legacy with never-before-heard harmonies and original melodies, becoming France's most famous composer of late Baroque opera.
NPR: Opera Beyond Words: Rameau's Radiant Dances
2.
Lully's enormously successful operas and ballets set the stage for the operas that followed, some four decades later, by Jean-Philippe Rameau.
NPR: Opera Beyond Words: Rameau's Radiant Dances
3.
The emphasis on dance in French opera started with Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), himself a dancer, who became the court composer to France's music-loving "Sun King, " Louis XIV.