Performer: Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

The composer’s final opera is virtually impossible to stage comfortably, but Sir Mark Elder makes a convincing case for more regular outings of its beautiful music.

Dinis Sousa doesn't put a foot wrong as the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir give a performance of startling virtuosity at the end of a European tour. 

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor. 

This concert was inevitably the sum of far more than its parts, and not for nothing are the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiquem, regarded as among the best in the world

Antoine Tamestit takes a peripatetic approach to Byron's brooding hero, while Joyce DiDonato dies – twice – as Cleopatra and Dido. 

An unapologetic treat at the Proms and a composition of immediate appeal.