Linden Baroque Orchestra, Chelsea Ballet, Six Centuries Chamber Choir

Hippolyte et Aricie was Jean-Philippe Rameau's first opera and it proved not only a great success, with an initial run of 40 performances in 1733 but changed the shape of opera forever.

It caused a storm, sweeping away the conventions of opera set by Lully of the previous generation. The drama was presented in a fresh, more spontaneous style with music taking over from rhetoric as the main impulse; more melody, more daring harmonisation and an increased orchestral palate.

It concerns a stirring story of heroes and Gods from ancient Greece with love, jealousy, bad behaviour, self harm and a sea monster.

This will be a semi-staged performance on original instruments with dance: Linden Baroque in association with Chelsea Ballet and Six Centuries Chamber Choir.