Hippolyte et Aricie

Hippolyte et Aricie is a lyric tragedy in five acts and a prologue with a score by Rameau and a libretto by the abbé Pellegrin (see seventeenth-century volume for abbé Pellegrin). It was Rameau’s first work for the Royal Academy of Music, and its tighter harmony and more solemn dignity tended to puzzle audiences at first despite the enthusiasm it aroused from the time of its premiere on 1 October 1733. When Hippolyte et Aricie was rehearsed for the first time, the second trio by the Fates in…