Performer: Aaron Sheehan

Opera Atelier's return to the earliest part of the repertoire with Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria showcases their strengths in a relatively restrained production anchored by a strong ensemble cast.

“Leave your hoop skirts and swords at home,” the audience was advised, in order to avoid overcrowding when Handel’s Messiah premiered in Dublin in 1742.

Handel's La Resurrezione, anchored the Boston Early Music Festival’s Thursday programs in a dramatic reading by many of the same forces performing Campra’s La Carnaval de Venise.

With Lully’s death in 1687 and Louis XIV’s increasing immersion in religious piety under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, the court ceased to exercise a strangle hold on opera.

Cal Performances and Philharmonia Baroque present a lavish modern-day première of the 1745 version of Rameau's Le Temple de la Gloire. 

In spite of superb performances from the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra and the two lead soloists, Steffani’s Niobe at the Concertgebouw offers too few inspired moments to make it truly memorable.