Performer: Samuel Boden

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. 

It is hard to imagine a better performance of Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 than this one by the French ensemble Pygmalion under the direction of Raphaël Pichon. 

Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie leads the Orchestra of St Luke’s in a superbly sung and played performance of Bach’s fiery and dramatic St John Passion. 

A superb orchestral performance from Paul Agnew and The English Concert lights up a breezy and fun staging of Rameau's ballet bouffon.

A concert performance of a Purcell semi-opera can never fully succeed, but compromise is worth it, if it enables us to hear a significant part of a major composer's output.

Àlex Ollé directs a rare version of Idoménée in Berlin, in which the staging fares better than the singing.