actually the fridge is an appropriate 21st-century metaphor for the frigidity of the goddess...one of the many good things about this production is the way Jonathan Kent and choreographer Ashley Page have integrated the dancing with the action...Degout is convincingly anguished as Theseus, and Sarah Connolly formidably regal as well as despairing.

Connolly’s grande dame queen lives inside every word and note in what is an outstanding performance upon which she lavishes considerable variety of tone and textual expertise; the result is very moving. Also conceived on an appropriate scale, Stéphane Degout’s Thésée is a substantial, emphatic and a light, buoyant tone for Hippolyte, sweetness with purpose, delicacy with determination. Among the secondary Diana, Julie Pasturaud’s conspiratorial Oenone and Ana Quintans’s smart, sassy L’Amour all impress.

if you don’t grin and giggle you should check your pulse...But the performers hold wonderfully steady. Sarah Connolly’s Phaedra throbs with the bottled desire and vulnerability expected of a queen in love with her stepson...Christie lavishes his love and skill on a score whose splendours keep on growing over the show’s three hours.

[Degout gives] an immensely impressive and focused performance...there is musical beguilement and exhilaration here, and the wonder of Rameau’s sound-world is beautifully realised, particularly in the dances. This would have made a wonderful CD without the visuals.