It was in June 1952, as the UK was contemplating the dawn of another Elizabethan era, that Paris Opera put on the first modern revival of Rameau's opera-ballet Les Indes Galantes. It has taken another half-century for it to be staged in Britain, and it is Bristol Opera who have been been brave enough to do so.
There are usually good reasons why certain things don't get performed: the fact that Les Indes Galantes requires a shipwreck and the eruption of a Peruvian volcano is obstacle enough. Since St George's simple 18th-century stage demands a bit of sleight of hand anyway, Bristol Opera was undeterred, feeling the music was perfect for the building.
By and large, it was. Les Arts Florissants they are not, but, with such ravishing music delivered with admirable conviction, Bristol Opera's was a gamble worth taking. In particular, Lucy van Gasse, Ethel-Jane Cormack and Shie Shoji made pleasing listening.
Aspects of Love in a hot climate would just about sum up the thin threads of plot, with its prologue and four entrées, variously set on an Indian Ocean island, at a sun festival in the Andes, at a Persian flower festival and with a tribe of native north Americans. With the Indes of the title applying to anywhere far-flung, the piece is an awkward mixture of PC and non-PC. But, in widening their horizons, Rameau and his librettist Fuzelier were embracing Enlightenment principles. And Alexandra Denman's straightforward direction and matter-of-fact English translation allowed the preoccupations with love, honour and ritual to emerge clearly through the prism of graceful French galanterie.
What is so remarkable about Rameau is the dramatic tension and highly descriptive instrumental and harmonic colour, vividly conjured, with the furious storm making the shipwreck and the dark volcanic rumblings of the Sun God entirely credible. Musical director Mark Finch handled these textures well, his wind players weaving Rameau's intricate lines stylishly, and the chorus was inspired to a nicely resonant sound. What an enterprising way for a company to celebrate an anniversary.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 0117-923 0359.
