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Philip Glass' hypnotic opera returns in Phelim McDermott's outstanding production that respects the solemn, statuesque grandeur and epic ritual of the score. 

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment resurrected with 1926 silent film of Strauss' Viennese comedy – with the lost ending pieced together – and gave a commendable performance of the reduced score.

Glass' meditation on Gandhi's principles of non-violent resistance is powerfully treated in Phelim McDermott's virtuosic 2007 staging.

An opera only ever performed once, over 300 years ago. Would this be a marvellous revival, or a reminder of why it has been neglected all this time?

A strong cast and fine playing from La Nuova Musica gives Handel's Berenice a reasonably fair outing, but its original plot weaknesses constrain this opera from being anything more than a curio for the Handel connoisseur.