Jean-Baptiste Rey

Jean-Baptiste Rey (18 December 1734 – 15 July 1810) was a French conductor and composer. Rey was born at Lauzerte. He remains the longest-serving conductor of the Paris Opera; his tenure spans from the last years of the monarchy to Napoleon’s Empire (1776–1810). As such, he conducted most performances of masterpieces by Gluck, Piccini, Sacchini, Salieri, Gretry, Méhul, Haydn, Mozart, Spontini, etc., many of whom he cooperated with closely. He was the author of an opera, Apollon et Coronis (1781) and several other pieces and arrangements. Rey also wrote the third act of Sacchini’s Arvire et Évélina (1788). Before his nomination at the Academie royale, Rey gained fame as a conductor in the theatres of Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille, Bordeaux and Nantes. He was called to Paris in 1776 to assist the then first conductor, Louis-Joseph Francœur, whom he replaced in 1781. In 1779, he was named Maître de musique of Louis XVI’s royal chamber. In 1781, Apollon et Coronis, the opera he composed with his brother, the cellist Louis-Charles-Joseph Rey, was performed. He kept his position at the Opera throughout the Revolution and participated in a number of revolutionary ceremonies. In 1799, h