“Dardanus” is Rameau’s third “Tragédie lyrique” composed for Paris after “Hippolyte et Aricie” and “Castor et Pollux”. With its multi-facetted music, it represents quite a high point of this genre.

The plot revolves around the love story between the young warrior Dardanus, and Iphise, daughter of King Teucer, against whom Dardanus is at war. The young woman is actually promised to Anténor, an ally of Teucer, but succumbs to the forbidden love. After various adventures and the intervention of the goddess Venus, Iphise joins forces with Dardanus and together they finally break Teucer's stubbornness.

For the first time this critical edition prepared by Denis Herlin offers the possibility to reconstruct the version of May 1744 in addition to the version of 1739 which has already been published in this series (BA 8854). Also, the appendices include the complete performance material of the April 1744 version, many parts of which could not be heard since. Last but not least the changes of the successful re-staging of 1760 are presented. As such all versions of this main work of Rameau are now available in Bärenreiter editions.