Les fêtes d'hébé at Opéra national de Paris - Opéra Bastille

After the scandal surrounding the first performance of Hippolyte et Aricie and the stormy reception of Les Indes galantes, Jean-Philippe Rameau finally gained incontestable fame with the opera?ballet Les Fêtes d’Hébé ou Les Talens liriques. First performed at the Paris Royal Academy of music on 21st May 1739, the work was to be performed many times to constant acclaim up until 1770. The Prologue portrays Hébé, the goddess of youth, harassed by the Pleasures and obliged to flee Olympus and find solace in the arms of Love. The work recounts the victories of the God of Love in three acts or “Entrées” entitled “La Poésie”, “La Musique” and “La Danse”. With a libretto designed above all to show the arts of dancing and singing to full advantage, first in epic, then lyric and finally pastoral style, Rameau is able to give unfettered rein to his genius. The choreographer Thomas Lebrun proposes a resolutely contemporary interpretation of Rameau’s “opéra-ballet” with the artists of the Paris Opera Academy, choristers from the Centre de Musique Baroque in Versailles and the musicians of London’s Royal College of Music.