Mozart was just 14 years old when he composed Mitridate, re di Ponto, a noble opera seria based on a play by Racine. A great success at its premiere, it is only rarely staged today, so this 2016 performance, led by Emmanuelle Haïm at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées, was by definition a special occasion. The dazzlingly virtuosic cast is led by tenor Michael Spyres and sopranos Patricia Petibon and Sabine Devieilhe, while the intense modern staging is by Clément Hervieu-Léger, a resident director at France’s most illustrious theatre company, the Comédie Française.

What a wonderful contrast! Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Bach’s Magnificat represent the two oft-compared composers at Dixit . He had already written two Italian operas, and his career path clearly pointed in that direction. The Dixit is as extravagant as Bach’s Magnificat is controlled. The two pieces are such a good fit that one wonders why they haven’t turned up together more frequently, if, in fact, they have at all.

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence has firmly established itself as France’s preeminent summer festival and is a key fixture on the international festival calendar. It is particularly in the field of opera that the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence continues to break new ground and this release from the 2016 festival demonstrates that. In this new staging – a coproduction with the Opéra de Lille, Théâtre de Caen – Emmanuelle Haïm directs Le Concert d’Astrée with a star-studded cast including Franco Fagioli, Sara Mingardo, Michael Spyres, and exclusive Erato artist Sabine Devieilhe.

Emmanuelle Haïm has established herself as one of the world’s leading performers, conductors and interpreters of Baroque repertoire, not only with Le Concert d’Astrée, the ensemble she founded in 2000, but with several of the world’s greatest orchestras. Known for her fresh and expressive approach to Baroque music, she has garnered critical acclaim and several international awards with her own ensemble, including Victoires de la Musique Classique, ECHOs, Gramophone Awards, and Grammy nominations.

This is an excellent recording of Handel's "other" Acis – an Italian cantata he composed during a visit to Naples ten years before he wrote the more famous English masque Acis and Galatea. Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d'Astrée play with pathos, imagination, and impeccable style, never forgetting that, in a work for such intimate forces, maintaining musical momentum and variety is the key to success. Sandrine Piau (Aci), Sara Mingardo (Galatea), and Laurent Naouri (Polifemo) are perfectly cast; Piau's crystalline soprano and Mingardo's warm, full-bodied mezzo blend wonderfully in their duets, sounding as if they have sung together for years, and both of them deliver spectacular solo moments.

Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky continues to amaze with the facility of his technique in the most demanding coloratura repertoire, the intelligence and deep feeling of his musicianship, and, most especially, with the full, vibrant quality of his distinctive voice. It has lost none of its freshness since he burst onto the international scene in the last years of the 20th century, and has become a richer, stronger instrument without giving up any of its remarkable agility. A champion of neglected Baroque composers, he turns his attention to Antonio Caldara (ca. 1671-1736), a near-contemporary of Vivaldi's.

Following the trend of singers releasing recitals based on the repertoire of great performers of previous centuries – Cecilia Bartoli's tribute to Maria Malibran and Juan Diego Flórez's to Giovanni Battista Rubini, for instance – countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has devoted a CD to the repertoire of eighteenth century castrato Giovanni Carestini, who was a rival of Farinelli's. According to contemporary accounts, Farinelli was the more virtuosic of the two, with a hair-raisingly dazzling coloratura, and Carestini was noted for the beauty and purity of his tone, and his profound musical and dramatic characterizations. The demands of the arias collected here make it clear that Carestini must also have had a fully developed technique, because they require remarkable agility and an awe-inspiring range that essentially encompasses both soprano and contralto registers, as well as great interpretive sensitivity.

Two decades ago Handel's early Italian-language cantatas were little known, but sopranos have discovered that they provide a top-level vocal workout while offering more than a hint of the mature Handel's genius. This disc by French singer Natalie Dessay, one of the hottest sopranos on the scene, is going to be hard to beat. Dessay shares the credit with the period-instrument ensemble Le Concert d'Astrée and its conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, who has been turning out one groundbreaking Baroque disc after another.

Handel's Italian cantatas date from early in his career, with few exceptions (none on display here). As a group they are less well-known than his operas, but they're equally virtuosic, and performances of the cantatas whole, as with the three here, are a bit more satisfying than with the operas. The cantatas were composed for parties among powerful Roman cardinals, and they catch the young Handel at the peak of his first success, as Roman audiences hailed him as "il caro Sassone" (the dear Saxon). The arias are fancy and a bit brash, and one key to a good performance is to catch this quality. Both the singers here, French soprano Sabine Devieilhe and French-Italian mezzo Lea Desandre, are up-and-comers, and they offer fine, dramatically enthusiastic performances.

The fact that the role of Handel's Cleopatra includes enough music to fill out a CD, and that, combined with the music's demands for immense virtuosity and versatility, makes it a daunting challenge and Natalie Dessay is impressive in her account of these excerpts. Dessay's singing is not entirely consistent throughout the album, recorded in 2010, whether because some arias are simply better suited to her voice than others, or because she was not at her best for some of the recording sessions. While the agility and precision of her coloratura are always intact, in some selections, such as the arias "Tutto può donna vezzosa," and "Venere bella," Dessay's voice sounds lighter than it does on albums from earlier in her career, and even a little breathy in her lower register. In other arias, though, she conveys the remarkable fullness and purity for which she is renowned. "Se pieta di me non senti" is breathtaking; her gleaming tone is practically voluptuous and she spins lines of miraculously velvety smoothness and searing emotional intensity.

It's tempting to think these duets, which Handel composed at various points in his career, are just chips from the master's block. But they constitute a delightful hour's worth of music, and when sung with the vocal brilliance and stylishness displayed here by ten top singers in various pairings, they add up to one of those rare discs it's hard to stop returning to. Handel must have thought a lot of them too–since he reused some of this music for oratorios like Messiah–and turned to the chamber duet form in his last years as well. There isn't a weak link among the soloists, though the contributions of Natalie Dessay, Veronique Gens, and Sara Mingardo are especially noteworthy. Whether asked to sing plaintive laments or flashy coloratura displays, these well-matched voices thrill. The accompaniments (harpsichord or organ, lute and cello) are faultless. The appeal of this disc extends far beyond Baroque specialists to anyone who enjoys outstanding singing.

–Dan Davis

Giulio Cesare, the most popular of Handel’s operas, is named after the great Roman emperor, but its most memorable character is Cleopatra. In this production by Laurent Pelly from Paris’ splendid Palais Garnier, the role of the Egyptian queen is assumed for the first time by Natalie Dessay, described by the Telegraph as “a supreme vocal enchantress”.

In Spring 2014 Emanuelle Haïm conducted her orchestra Le Concert d'Astrée and a carefully-chosen cast in La finta giardiniera, staged by the French director David Lescot, in the cities of Lille and Dijon; the production was described by the French newspaper La Croix as “three hours of pure happiness”.