Performer: Oliver Mercer

The early music ensemble peppered its diverse program with the rollicking play A Christmas Messe. While not all arrangements worked well, expertise and emotion made for a pleasurably unique performance.

Apollo's Fire digs deep into the roots of early music and finds some surprisingly contemporary sounds.

Bampton Classical Opera is a company dedicated to performing rarely-performed 18th-century operas, and every summer they stage a new production with a cast of young and upcoming singers at their base in Bampton in Oxfordshire. This year’s production was a double-bill of French opéras comiques by Philidor and Grétry, which they brought to London’s St John’s Smith Square last week.