Bring on the Baroque: The Bristol Baroque Festival begins at St George's with Bach's St John Passion

Part of this year's London Handel Festival, Apollo e Dafne and The Choice of Hercules are transported to the stage in a captivating production that blends music and dance.

Terrific music making with a light directorial touch brings mixed results to Monteverdi's 1643 masterpiece. 

Handel’s opera Orlando is famous for the great mad scene at the end of Act 2. Specifically written for the celebrated castrato Senesino, it’s an emotionally powerful ten-minute monologue.

Despite the beautiful sensitivity of La Nuova Musica, coupled with some truly sublime singing, the silliness of Cavalli’s opera is sometimes overplayed in this semi-staged production; less is, sometimes, more.

A strong cast and fine playing from La Nuova Musica gives Handel's Berenice a reasonably fair outing, but its original plot weaknesses constrain this opera from being anything more than a curio for the Handel connoisseur. 

A very naughty translation and some fine singing make for a delightfully comic evening of Cesti's recently rediscovered Orontea at Wigmore Hall.