Yvonne Kenny has been one of the most impressive of Handel sopranos for so many years now that it has even been possible to take her for granted. The level of tonal beauty, operatic intensity, mastery of divisions, intelligent appreciation and application of ornaments, blending of voices in duets, superior impersonation and acting skills that Kenny has evinced, however, are rare commodities. She first sang Alcina, Sutherland’s famous role, moving on to include Semele and Xerxes, Julius Caesar and Rinaldo amongst others that will be remembered by many. Her performances with ENO are imperishable memories for me.

Filmed and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle in the unique interiors of Vicenza's Teatro Olimpico in 1986, this DVD offers an intimate glimpse of Mozart's first major opera, written when the precocious composer was just fourteen. Nikolaus Harnoncourt leads a stellar cast in portraying the inner circle of the Roman Empire's fiercest enemy: Mithridates, king of Pontus.

One of the most fascinating recording projects of this period was Sir Roger Norrington's pioneering set of Beethoven symphonies with The London Classical Players. Here at long last–after a century and a half of neglect–was a conductor bravely determined to conduct these symphonies according to Beethoven's difficult metronome markings, and as played on the original instruments that Beethoven had composed for–that is, the very sounds that he must have had in his mind when he wrote this music down. Norrington astutely saw that Beethoven's original brass and percussion instruments play a crucially prominent role in these symphonies, and most importantly, that they cannot be tempered without diminishing the passionate intensity of the music itself.

Harnoncourt tops off the complete Das Alte Werk set of Bach's church cantatas with admirably ebullient accounts of (these two) secular cantatas…the exuberance of the performance carries over into Harnoncourt's accompaniments - no scholarly rectitiude here - and the recording is first rate.

“Yvonne Kenny was already experienced in the role of Aspasia when this production was filmed in 1986, and here she is musically agile and dramatically compelling. Rockwell Blake is vocally muscular as Mitridate… The American soprano Ashley Putnam was simply an inspired choice for the… trouser-role of Sifare, and the rest of the cast is good. The direction is fluid…” BBC Music Magazine

Joseph and his Brethren, the latest in The King's Consort's mammoth series of recordings of the grand oratorios of Handel, tells the story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his perfidious brothers, winning acceptance at the court of Pharaoh in Egypt by his interpretation of the dreams foretelling seven years of plenty, and seven of famine. His brothers come from drought-ridden Israel to beg for food, and are eventually reunited with Joseph. The work is characteristically full of melodic invention and drama, culminating in the scene between Joseph and his youngest—and innocent—brother Benjamin (here sung by the stunning treble Connor Burrowes) in which Joseph is emotionally overcome and admits his true identity. No wonder the work was so warmly received at its first performance.

‘Deborah contains some of the most glorious music Handel ever wrote. Even if many of the numbers have been recycled from earlier works, the invention is still staggering. Handel devotees can thus amuse themselves spotting the tunes while everyone else can revel in the sumptuous scoring and the sheer vitality and humanity of the piece, all superbly conveyed in Robert King's recording’.

The new production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen launched in 1995 by the English National Opera (ENO) was received with great enthusiasm by both the public and musical press. This atmospheric production was prepared by David Pountney, Robert Israel created the stage set, Dunya Ramicova was responsible for costume design and Quinny Sacks was responsible for the choreography of the dance roles as well as the numerous breathtaking ballet scenes. Under the musical direction of Nicholas Kok, the English National Orchestra played a baroque music which was as crystal clear as it was expressively infectious.

Handel's Messiah is increasingly performed in authentic Baroque style and with period techniques, and this version by conductor Anders Öhrwall, the Stockholm Bach Choir, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra falls in line with the trend. While there is no clear indication that the instruments are anything but modern, the orchestral sound is imbued with a glossy string sound and transparent textures supported by a basso continuo that includes both harpsichord and organ, and the choir's scaled-down size gives it the transparency associated with Baroque choral singing.

Giovanni Mayr is known today primarily as the teacher of Donizetti, but in the very late 1700s and first two decades of the 1800s, this German-born, Italian-by-adoption composer was all the operatic rage, combining the fiorature and niceties of Italian vocal writing with a German penchant for orchestration (Medea’s opening aria has a violin obbligato of the type that you simply do not find with the Italians, for instance). Medea in Corinto is considered Mayr’s masterpiece; in fact, it’s a long score, not quite as poweful as Cherubini’s, but with plenty of flavor of its own.

Unlike the late arrival of Mozart's Turkish opera, "Figaro" was much more of a constant in Solti's long career. Apart from being his debut opera, and a work he conducted at Covent Garden in a new staging in 1963-64, he also led editions in Chicago (1957), and with the Paris Opera in the highly visible Giorgio Strehler production that opened Intendant Rolf Liebermann's bold-new-start regime in March 1973; it was initially presented at the Palace of Versailles and in 1976 toured to the US. Frederica von Stade, the most admired Cherubino of the day, who had sung the role for Solti at Versailles, also appears on his subsequent recording. Made in 1981 with an exceptional cast, it won a Grammy award, perhaps unsurprisingly given that its other major assets include Kiri Te Kanawa's creamy-voiced Countess, Lucia Popp's sprightly Susanna, Thomas Allen's authoritative Count and Samuel Ramey's weighty Figaro. Smaller roles - Jane Berbié's Marcellina, Robert Tear's Basilio and Philip Langridge's Curzio among them - are also handled with tremendous care.