The duets in his operas are the special treats, coming at climactic points – most often, two lovers' supposedly final parting, or their ultimate reunion. Try 'Io t'abbraccio', from Rodelinda, or the wonderful 'Per la porte del tormento' from Sosarme. We have several pieces from Poro, first the intense little love duet in Act 2, and later the two arias in which Poro and Cleofide swear eternal fidelity – which they fling back at each other when, in a duet we also hear, both believe themselves betrayed. Then there's the delightful little minor-key duet from Faramondo, the quarrel duet from Atalanta, the charmingly playful piece from Muzio Scevola, and the extraordinary one for the pleading Angelica and the furious, maddened Orlando. Handel's understanding of the shades and accents of love are something to marvel at.

Founded in Amsterdam in 1979 by Alan Curtis, one of the most acclaimed specialists in the interpretation of pre-romantic music, Il Complesso Barocco, has become a renowned international baroque orchestra with a focus on Italian Baroque opera and oratorio. Their rich discography was for a time devoted to the late madrigal repertory, and the film director Werner Herzog chose the ensemble as protagonists for his film Morte a cinque voci (Prix Italia 1996 and Premio Rembrandt, Amsterdam 1996) dedicated to the composer Carlo Gesualdo.

Founded in Italy in 1992 by Alan Curtis, one of the most acclaimed specialists in the interpretation of pre-romantic music, Il Complesso Barocco, has become a renowned international baroque orchestra with a focus on Italian Baroque opera and oratorio. Their high standard for interpretation, intonation and stylistic accuracy has led to their being requested in the most important concert venues and festivals in Europe.

Alan Curtis (November 17, 1934 – July 15, 2015) was an American harpsichordist, musicologist, and conductor baroque opera. Born in Mason, Michigan, Curtis graduated from studies at the University of Illinois, and received his PhD in 1960 with a dissertation on the keyboard music of Sweelinck. He then relocated to Amsterdam to work with Gustav Leonhardt,[1] with whom he subsequently recorded a number of Bach's concerti for harpsichord. In the 1960s and 1970s, he made a number of recordings of solo harpsichord music[2] including albums dedicated to the keyboard music of Rameau and the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as his recording of the Goldberg Variations made on a 1728 Christian Zell harpsichord.

Demofoonte dates from the early Milan years of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), long before the radical reform operas for which he is most famous and his break with opera seria and the librettos of Pietro Metastasio. Gluck arrived in the northern Italian city in 1737 and was mentored there by composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Though Sammartini primarily composed symphonies and music for the church, Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducal.

"L'infedeltà costante" - "Die beständige Untreue", mit diesem Titel haben Anna Bonitatibus und Alan Curtis ihre Haydn-CD umschrieben. Denn um "Untreue" in der einen oder anderen Art geht es bei all den diversen Arien aus Haydns zahlreichen Opern. Die italienische Mezzosopranistin Anna Bonitatibus hat sich Arien aus den Opern La fedeltà premiata, Orlando Palladino, La vera costanza, L'infedeltà delusa, La frascatana, L` isola disabitata und Arianna a Naxos ausgesucht, die Haydn zu Recht als Opernkomponisten "rehabilitieren": Musikalisch abwechslungsreiche, ausdrucksstarke Stücke, die mannigfaltige Facetten von der schlichten Melodie bis hin zu atemberaubenden Koloraturen aufweisen. Eine echte Entdeckung, welche die Sängerin Alan Curtis und sein Complesso Barocco beschwingt präsentieren.

Gluck wrote his opera seria Ezio in 1750 for production in Prague. (In 1762, after the formal and stylistic breakthroughs of Orfeo ed Euridice, he revised the opera for a Vienna production, but it's the original version that's recorded here.) The opera has many of the characteristics of Italian late Baroque opera; it's essentially a series of arias separated by accompanied recitatives, the formula that the composer reacted against in Orfeo. It's not Gluck at his most innovative or original, but it's a fine example of opera seria, with a number of impressive arias and some very expressive recitatives, and it can make quite an impact in a performance as fine as this one.

The Florentine Francesco Bartolomeo Conti (1682-1732) was the finest theorbo player in early 18th-century Europe, and spent almost his entire career at the Habsburg court in Vienna. He composed sacred and secular vocal works special enough to warrant the attention of both Bach and Handel. Conti's oratorio David, a setting of a dramatic libretto by Apostolo Zeno, was first performed at Vienna in March 1724. The cast of singers included the tenor Francesco Borosini, soon afterwards a principal cast member for Handel in Tamerlano and Rodelinda (Conti's writing for Borosini descends to a low G, hence the decision here to cast baritone Furio Zanasi as Saul).

This exciting studio recording is the second project resulting from the collaboration between Marie-Nicole Lemieux Karina Gauvin and conductor and harpsichordist Alan Curtis' award winning Complesso Barocco. Giulio Cesare is one of Handel's most renowned operas and the role of Giulio Cesare is considered to be one of the most beautiful roles in the baroque opera. The full vocal cast is stunning and Alan Curtis shows once again why he is considered one of the world's leading Handel specialists.

The scope and grandeur of Handel's operatic output – the musical variety and inventiveness, the depth of psychological insight, as well as the sheer volume of works – continue to astonish as new operas are brought to light and more familiar works are given productions and recordings that do justice to the material. Ariodante, written in 1735, is nowhere nearly as frequently performed as the more famous operas like Giulio Cesare, but neither is it entirely obscure, and there have been several very fine modern recordings. This version with Alan Curtis leading Il Complesso Barocco can be recommended without reservation to anyone coming to the opera for the first time or for anyone who's already a fan.

Berenice is one of those slightly problematic operas which seem to work better in the theatre where the gender of the characters is (usually) more obvious. Here we have a pair of low voices, one singing a man and one a woman, and a pair of high voices similarly paired. Curtis has chosen a beautifully balanced cast. But it is one where the voices are not highly distinctive so that you sometimes have to concentrate to tell whether Berenice or Alessandro is singing, or Selene or Arsace. If you listen to the opera with the libretto these sort of problems disappear.

Alan Curtis continues his exemplary series of Handel operas for Archiv with Ezio, a 1732 work that has received few modern productions. Its initial limited success and failure to generate much interest until the late twentieth century may have to do with its length (over three hours), its preponderance of recitatives, and the composer's reluctance to use the voices together in ensembles, so that the entire opera, until the final chorus, consists of solo singing. Handel's gift for astute psychological insight and distinctive musical characterization is evident throughout the score, and the recitatives, which are necessary for explicating Metastasio's convoluted plot, are not a problem when they are performed with as much vivid dramatic realism as they are here.

Alan Curtis' stellar recording of Alcina, which joins a respectable number of very fine recordings of the opera, is remarkable for the supple liveliness of his conducting and the outstanding performances of the soloists. The elasticity of his performance, leading Il Complesso Barocco, should dispel any misconceptions about Baroque music being rigid and metronomic. The nuanced care with which he brings out the emotional depth of Handel's writing is evident from the first measures of the overture and enlivens the entire opera.

For the 1727 season – the waning days of opera's popularity in London – transplanted German composer George Frederick Handel wrote no less than three operas for the English capital's stage. Tolomeo, rè d'Egitto was the last and least enthusiastically received of them. Unsuccessfully revived in 1730 and then again in 1733, Tolomeo was unperformed for the next 200 years, and even now, it remains one of Handel's least performed and recorded operas. Prior to this Archiv set, only a 1995 Vox recording of the work with Richard Auldon Clark leading the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra had been released in the digital era.

Handel wrote Floridante in 1722 for a London audience infatuated with Italian opera. The plot, like that of so many Baroque operas, was taken from ancient history and concerns romantic liaisons thrown into turmoil by political rivalries, in this case between Persia and Tyre. Handel wrote over 50 Italian operas, and it's remarkable that he was consistently able to summon such a high level of inventiveness and inspiration when faced repeatedly with librettos that must have come to look depressingly alike in the conventions of their labyrinthine plots.