Ariodante HWV 33 is an opera seria in three acts by Georg Friedrich Haendel. The anonymous Italian libretto was based on a work by Antonio Salvi, which had itself been adapted from Canti 4, 5 and 6 of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. It premiered at London’s Covent Garden Theatre on 8 January 1735, and received eleven performances during its initial run. It was revived by Handel for his 1736 season, but then went unperformed until it appeared in Stuttgart in 1926....

Some productions are tremendous on their first outing and never quite manage to recapture the same brilliance in subsequent revivals. Others discover that they need an initial outing before they find their feet, and the Royal Opera’s Rigoletto, from its Director of Opera Oliver Mears, would seem to fall into this latter category. It first appeared last September, but, aided by an outstanding cast, its first revival feels leaner and meaner in a great many ways. The good news is that...

Originally set in Naples, Mozart’s Così fan tutte of 1790 sees the philosopher Don Alfonso challenge two soldiers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, to prove that their respective fiancées, the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are faithful. He is certain that no woman ever is, but the younger men are so convinced of their own lovers’ fidelity that they agree to a wager with him. They will pretend to be called away to war and then return disguised as Albanians to try...