Performer: Miriam Allan

Vigour and vibrato: Les Arts Florissant bring gallic refinement to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Philharmonie de Paris. 

Celebrated soprano Miriam Allan headlines this energetic program of music written for the female orphan musicians of Venice's famous Ospedale.

Sir Roger Norrington and a strong cast joined a Baroque-style London Philharmonic Orchestra in a highly accomplished Dido and Aeneas, preceded by Handel’s clean and stately Water Music.

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

Handel's Athalia is a wonderful English oratorio but this production, while musically wonderful, was marred by a problematic staging with infuriating surtitles.

Giasone was the most performed opera of the 17th century, but this was no dry, reverent exhumation. This was something much better from Pinchgut Opera: a joyous, animated resurrection.