Work: L'Orfeo (Orpheus), SV318

Markus Bothe’s Botticelli-inspired production fuses tableau vivant aesthetics with Jörg Halubek’s surgical musical precision, offering a peerless, vivid tribute to the fragrant dawn of opera.

****1

Dionysian and Apollonian: René Jacobs conducts L'Orfeo in Berlin

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Elena Luporini, 18 Feb

In a concert performance at the Berlin Philharmonie, conductor René Jacobs gives his own – thrilling – take on Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.

*****

Don't look back: Longborough's new L'Orfeo

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Roy Westbrook, 11 Jul

Olivia Fuchs directs Monteverdi's early opera in a sparse staging with a consistently fine cast.

***11

Bachtrack top ten: Dante Alighieri

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Mark Pullinger & Elisabeth Schwarz, 13 Sep

Mark and Elisabeth descend to Hell to find the right soundtrack for Dante Week and to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner on Monteverdi

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David Karlin, 16 Mar

Read our wide-ranging interview about Monteverdi's operas, their cultural context, performing them today and why they remain as contemporary and fresh as when they were written four centuries ago.