Calisto

This luxurious set containing 39 CDs, 3 DVDs, 1 CD-Rom and four detailed booklets will tell you the full story of Baroque opera in Italy, France, England, and Germany. No fewer than 17 complete operas (including two on DVD) and two supplementary CDs (the dawn of opera, Overtures for the Hamburg Opera) provide the most comprehensive overview of the genre ever attempted! The finest performers are assembled here under the direction of René Jacobs and William Christie to offer you 47 hours of music. An opportunity to discover or to hear again the masterpieces of Baroque opera, some of which have been unavailable on CD for many years.

Handel's Giove in Argo (Jupiter in Argos) is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, a pastiche (or, in the parlance of the time, pasticcio) of numbers from earlier operas stitched together into a mythological-pastoral plot that is absurd even by the standards of Baroque opera. It is a notable sign of the success of the Baroque opera revival that this has appeared on a semi-major label, Virgin Classics. The pieces were all from operas that were fairly recent at the time, and it's possible that the work was intended as a kind of greatest-hits reprise, but London audiences did not bite; the opera was long thought to be lost, and it had its modern premiere only in 2006, with newly written recitatives.

The French countertenor leads Artaserse in a kaleidoscopic survey of the many and varied operas by the seventeenth-century Italian composer, shot through with the spirit of Venetian carnival.
New album of opera arias and symphonies by Francesco Cavalli, the prolific 17th century Venetian composer with 41 operas to his name, who was Handel’s predecessor in Hannover. Featuring Erato label mates Emőke Baráth and Marie-Nicole Lemieux , this is the first time Philippe has recorded Cavalli since his guest appearances on Christina Pluhar’s album dedicated to Cavalli, L’Amore innamorato.

New album of opera arias and symphonies by Francesco Cavalli, the prolific 17th century Venetian composer with 41 operas to his name, who was Handel’s predecessor in Hannover. Featuring Erato label mates Emőke Baráth and Marie-Nicole Lemieux , this is the first time Philippe has recorded Cavalli since his guest appearances on Christina Pluhar’s album dedicated to Cavalli, L’Amore innamorato.