On 28th June 1669, the poet, theoretician and founder of the Paris Opera, Abbé Perrin (Pierre Perrin) was granted permission by Louis XIV to establish an Academy of Opera for a twelve-year period to “present and sing in public Operas and musical performances in French verse similar to those of Italy”.
He installed it in 1670 in the hall of the Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille in the rue Mazarine. The first ever production of the Académie de l’Opéra, Pomone, which was co-written with Robert Cambert, was performed on March 19th 1671, thus inaugurating the first public opera house in Paris.
In the wake of altercations with the Marquis of Sourdéac and Champeron, the Abbé Perrin was imprisoned for debt and finally relinquished his privilege to Jean-Baptiste Lully on March 1672, the date on which the Académie d’Opéra became, until the French Revolution, the Académie royale de Musique.
