Originally performed in 18th-century Paris, composer Jean-Philippe Rameau’s first opera is a Greek mythology-based humdinger plotting a tempestuous lust between Phèdre and her stepson, Hippolytus.

It is Glyndebourne’s first Rameau adaptation, and Jonathan Kent’s version – spectacularly scored by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – is an extraordinary one, daring itself to continually elevate the fantastical.

Cupid dances in a vast cupboard and a giant, gleaming orange hangs from the ceiling, parading broccoli trees dwarfing male dancers below them. Slaughtered cattle, meanwhile, end up covering the bodies of maidens whose writhing rituals leave the stage smeared in bovine blood.

At one moment of tension, recriminations are vanquished by a crew of ecstatic sailors dancing in pink light-bathed unison, the better to demonstrate the tendency to conceal life’s tribulations under a mask of serenity.

And a colony of twinkly-eyed ants use candelabras as dim lighting while their underworld overlord stands high on a toxic waste bin, a maniacal devil in a forked, turquoise and flame-coloured cape.

Sarah Connolly (Phèdre) and Ed Lyon (Hippolytus) lead a host of performances nearing perfection. Their achievement, given this opera’s frequently hyperactive exuberance, is remarkable to witness.