Cambert, Robert (c. 1628-1677)

French composer. His Pomone (1671) was the first French opera to be staged in public. Most of his music is lost. He was ousted by Jean-Baptiste Lully and went to live in London, England, in 1673.

He studied harpsichord with Jacques Chambonnières, was organist at the church of Saint-Honoré in Paris, and was appointed musical director at the court of Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. He was associated with the poet Pierre Perrin, who in 1669 had obtained a grant of monopoly for the performance of musical stage works in the French language; their opera Pomone was performed in 1671. He also composed the music for Perrin's Pastorale, performed at the Château d'Issy in 1659; it was claimed, though erroneously, to be the earliest French comedy in music, or opera. Lully's intrigues transferred Perrin's monopoly into his own hands, and Cambert left Paris to settle in London.

Works Stage a comedy with music La Muette ingrate (1658); a pastoral performed at Issy and another, Les Peines et les plaisirs de l'amour (1671); operas Ariane, ou Le Mariage de Bacchus, Pomone (1674); a trio for Brécourt's Jaloux invisible; airs à boire.