Les Boréades, seemingly unperformed in Rameau’s lifetime and first staged in 1982, is a strange but fascinating piece. Cast in the traditional five acts, it’s about the mutual love amid trials of Alphise, queen of Bactria, and Abaris, a foreigner of unknown origin who has been brought up by the high priest of Apollo.

The music is top-drawer Rameau, with exquisite airs, vigorous choruses and, as you would expect, lots of ballet. The writing for orchestra is outstanding: horn-calls from the overture permeate the first scene, a weird prelude of disjointed phrases announces the entrance of Borée, and there is a cracking storm, the ‘Suite des Vents’, to connect Acts 3 and 4 – except it doesn’t because, unbelievably, that is where the break between the discs occurs.

In the documentary feature, Robert Carsen says that ‘you can reconstruct everything except the audience’; so, as with Les Arts Florissants’ earlier productions, this is no bewigged homage to the ancien régime. Instead, Carsen has divided Rameau’s chorus of Bactrian subjects into two: the severe Boreads, buttoned up in trench coats, and scantily clad, let-it-all-hang-out Apollonians. Most of the action takes place in near monochrome, symbolising the chill world of the north wind, with flowers and blue sky at the end representing all the connotations of spring. This is all very well, but it takes no account of the different settings, one of which has the suitors themselves praising Apollo in his temple.

At the end, darkness gives way to light; but so it does in many operas, before and since, and it’s probably fruitless to search for the Masonic sub-text and similarity to The Magic Flute that Laurent Naouri mentions in the feature. There is, however, a magic arrow, presented by Cupid to Alphise, who gives it to Abaris; he in turn uses it to quell the rage of the Boreads, saying ‘you want to be feared; can you be loved?’

True love wins, the world is renewed: in the end, you accept that Carsen’s directorial heart is in the right place. He is well served by his cast. Barbara Bonney, despite an unflattering wig, is touching as the queen who prefers to abdicate rather than give up her love. She is riveting in her first air, ‘Un horizon serein’, with its graphic depiction of the wind whipping up the sea. Paul Agnew is nowhere finer than in the desolate landscape of Act 4, producing a beautiful mezza voce at ‘Je vole, amour, où tu m’appelles’. Toby Spence and Stéphane Degout make a properly creepy pair of suitors.

William Christie conducts with all his customary dedication. The sheer exhilaration of the chorus in Act 3 has to be seen to be believed, with Agnew and Spence shooting the coloratura across like something out of Rossini. To me the manic semaphoring of a dance group called La La La Human Steps (I am not making this up) is to be endured, not enjoyed, but others will no doubt see more in it. The subtitles are a ghastly mixture of Olde Englishe and eccentricity. This is a serious attempt at interpreting Rameau in modern terms; unreconstructed traditionalists will be happier with the John Eliot Gardiner CD recording on Erato.