1/5. Mantua in its heyday was host to one of the most brilliant courts in late Renaissance Italy. That's where Claudio Monteverdi wrote the world's first operatic masterpiece - L'Orfeo. This week, Donald Macleod raises the curtain on Monteverdi's dramatic music, from his most powerfully expressive madrigals to his lavish ballets and highly original operas. De la Bellezza le Dovute Lodi
Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, director John Eliot Gardiner
Cruda Amarilli , Che co/ Nome Ancora; 0 Mirtillo, Mirtillo, Anima Mia ; Tamo Mia Vita
Concerto Italiano, director Rinaldo Alessandrini L'Orfeo: Act 3 (Possente Spirto); Act 4
Ian Bostridge (tenor: Orfeo), Patrizia Ciofi
(soprano: Euridice), Veronique Gens (soprano: Proserpina), Lorenzo Regazzo (bass: Pluto), European Voices, Les Sacqueboutiers, Le
Concert d'Astree, director Emmanuelle HaTm
Producer Deborah Preston Repeated on Sunday at midnight