violin melody and the slower bass. Act Four opens with Hippolyte's monologue "Ah, faut-il qu'en un jour", which looks forward to similarly "elegiac" arias in Rameau's later operas, for example "Lieux désolés" in Les Boréades. The divertissement in the middle of the act celebrates the hunt, with extensive use of horns. The finale is devoted to Hippolyte's confrontation with the sea monster, depicted in stormy music in which the flutes represent blasts of wind. It ends with Phèdre's great lament, which Sylvie Bouissou describes as "one of the finest pages of French Baroque opera". The final act is split into two . In the first, Thésée expresses his remorse for his treatment of Hippolyte and recounts Phèdre's suicide. In the words of Cuthbert Girdlestone, "it is a passionate, despairing scena with no fixed form". The scene shifts as Aricie is transported to be reunited with the resurrected Hippolyte in a beautiful rural landscape. This allowed Rameau to paint the scene using the techniques of pastoral music, including a musette (a type of bagpipe). He also displayed his orchestral skill in a chaconne, another feature of many of his later operas. The composer made a concession to popular taste by inserting the "Nightingale aria" () before the final gavottes. It is an example of an , the French term for a long in the Italian style, with the aim of showing off the singer's technical prowess. This particular specimen has no connection with the action of the drama, something Rameau would change with he wrote later, such as "Que ce séjour est agréable" and "Aux langueurs d'Apollon Daphné se refusa" in Platée. Roles The ballet corps included Marie-Anne Cupis de Camargo. Instrumentation The opera uses an orchestra with the following instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two musettes, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and other percussion, strings (with divided violas), and harpsichord. Synopsis Prologue An overture in the typical Lullian style precedes the allegorical prologue set in the Forest of Erymanthus where Diana (Diane in the opera) and Cupid (L'Amour) are arguing who will rule over the forest dwellers. The quarrel is settled by Jupiter who decrees that Love will reign over their hearts for one day every year. Diana vows to look after Hippolytus (Hippolyte) and Aricia (Aricie). Act 1 The temple of Diana in Troezen The story concerns the Greek hero Theseus, King of Athens (Thésée in the