Performer: Alex Rosen

Having all but faded from memory, the Swiss composer’s hybrid work takes the audience by surprise. Yet the musical direction and the cast do it justice – in stark contrast to the flat staging.

Leonardo García-Alarcón's exhumation of Bembo's work proves a winner, in a hyper-quirky staging by Netia Jones with Julie Fuchs as the pick of the fine singers.

A wonderful performance of a hitherto little known 17th-century version of the Orpheus legend is performed by Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion at the Adelaide Festival. 

From Jakub Józef Orliński’s youthful radiance to Sandrine Piau’s sovereign mastery, this performance revives Baroque ecstasy through razor-sharp orchestration, muscular playing and inventive embellishments of unparalleled emotional depth.

The French conductor pairs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with several of the composer’s more obscure miniatures, performed alongside thematically related poetry.

Projection proves a problem for the singers, but this Theodora at BOZAR is nevertheless full of musical and spiritual beauty.