If you think opera is a dated artform, try French baroque actes de ballet. A genre designed to cater for the Terpsichorean enthusiasms of the Sun King, their scanty plots were designed to titillate the court with maximum dancing and minimal plot, but with the potential for a bit of Royal propaganda thrown in. Jean-Philippe Rameau was an undisputed master of a musical ritual that now seldom sees the light of day, being more generally consigned to the realm of the recording studio (where, incidentally, shorn of their visuals they can seem even slighter fare).

Rameau, Maître à Danser at BAM. Photo © Richard Termine

William Christie is an actes de ballet enthusiast from way back and an old hand with Rameau, which explains why his 2014 staging of Daphis et Églé in a double bill with La Naissance d’Osiris has proved a hit worthy of several further outings over the years. This was its US premiere, a revival that abounds in charm and musical felicities, though not without the occasional longueur.

Did I mention that the plots were slight? Try Daphis et Églé: boy...