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Superb Handelian singing and intense character acting light up Handel’s Semele, staged as a stark, uncompromising indictment of the rich and powerful. 

A concert performance of a Purcell semi-opera can never fully succeed, but compromise is worth it, if it enables us to hear a significant part of a major composer's output.

Lisette Oropesa leads strong vocal performances in Handel's madcap tale of love and sorcery. Richard Jones' production is visually all over the place, but in a good way.

It’s the title character who gets the best tunes in Ariodante and Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy ate them up. 

Christine Rice gives an astonishingly performance in an evening of four powerful chamber pieces.

In 1724, Handel's Giulio Cesare was a vehicle for star singers Senesino and Francesca Cuzzoni. Maria Sanner and Lucie Chartin step into their shoes with great success for this Opera North revival. 

It was unfair to pair the exquisite madrigals and songs of Barbara Strozzi with a weighty piece by Monteverdi.

Fine singing all round, sensitive continuo musicianship and dramatic action make for a thoroughly enjoyable Return of Ulysses by Monteverdi.

A twist on the usual Enlightenment path, this is an admirable production, excellently executed.

Anna Devin's Cleopatra moved with complete conviction for scheming minx to mature woman in love.

Irene’s "Bane of virtue" was the first moment at which a singer’s performance met the measure of the work.

A mixed programme of Corelli, Handel and Pergolesi brings beauty and spiritual intensity, as well as some empowered erotic playfulness, to an evening with the Academy of Ancient Music. 

A series of ill-advised staging choices leads to a disappointingly drab performance of Monteverdi's Homeric epic.

Christopher Alden's account of Handel's love pentangle is long on Man Ray imagery and modern language wordplay, but never hits the vocal highs and eventually palls.

A somewhat overly manic production of Luigi Rossi's version of the Orpheus tale, originally written for the French court in 1647, is lit up by some great singing and a show-stealing comic performance by Graeme Broadbent.

At carnival time, Cavalli’s mission was to make his audience laugh, wow them with a bit of vocal gymnastics, butter up their romantic feelings with a few delicate cadences, and maybe leave a tear or two in their eye. It’s a potent formula, and it still works.

Director Christopher Alden's charming Partenope slinks its Surrealist way into San Francisco.

Closing your eyes while listening, you could easily imagine yourself in a gilt-edged salon, with Her Highness Mademoiselle Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, peer of France, princess of Joinville, hereditary seneschal of Champagne herself sitting not far from you, enjoying and approving every lovely note.

There is something pleasurably straining, for the big-hall, velvet-accustomed operagoer, about the experience of sitting for three hours on a very tiny bench in a charmingly chiselled, candlelit little theatre that invites contemplation in its own right – beyond the attractions, musical and other, set up within its frame.

Richard Jones' new production of Rodelinda for ENO has some very good singing, but suffers from a production that refuses to take the opera seriously.

Under the title “Monteverdi Ballets”, Spitalfields Music Summer Festival presented a joint collaboration between the Early Opera Company and Avant Garde Dance. The challenge was to merge music and dance coming from two different artistic projects into a single unified product.

The decision to appoint the Early Opera Company and Scanner as this year’s associate artists says much about Spitalfields Music Summer Festival, an eclectic cornucopia of classical and non-classical music concerts by professional and amateur artists, bespoke tours, and family activities.

When going to see a new production at ENO, always expect the unexpected. In ENO’s recent history, that has certainly been true, though not always to its credit. Friday’s opening performance of Charpentier’s Medea was no exception to the rule; however, in this case, it was an opulent, stylish and fabulous (in more than one sense) production, complemented by a truly spectacular cast.

The full name of Handel's opera is Giulio Cesare in Egitto: it depicts a historically loose version of Caesar's sojourn in Alexandria, during which Pompey is murdered, Ptolemy is killed in battle and Cleopatra is installed as Queen.

It is no surprise that in this Olympic year, various cultural goings-on have taken on, or alluded to, a sporting theme. This year's Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music made no exception, taking as its theme the ethos of the Olympic Games – Contests, Competitions and the Harmony of Nations – and cunningly applying it to incidents in musical history, as well as to music itself.

It was a glass-smashing, balloon-popping, bearskin-wearing, strip-out-of-your-swimsuit-onstage kind of afternoon at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater for the opening of New York City Opera’s second production of the 2012 season, Mozart’s Così fan tutte.Even for people who’ve seen this opera before, I’ll bet they’ve never seen a Così like this one.

Rameau's Castor et Pollux, his take on the Greek myth of two brothers so close that Pollux is prepared to descend into hell in the place of Castor, isn't exactly one of the standards of the repertoire.

On a dark and snowy night, a packed Wigmore Hall was captivated by the Early Opera Company's offering of Handel's Messiah - compared to some, an intimate performance with a dozen instrumentalists and a choir of 8, but which suited the surroundings to perfection.

Early music ensembles have become an established feature in the late night prom slot. In the calm and relaxed late night setting, the warm, articulate sound of period instruments can create a wonderful intimacy within the vast space of the Royal Albert Hall.