The four Salve Regina recordings presented on this uniquely compiled new album cross the boundary between opera house and church a boundary that in 18th-century Naples was never very forbidding to begin with. In fact, Leo, Pergolesi and Porpora are all fine examples of composers who moved with unselfconscious facility between sacred and secular genres, between old counterpoint and the Monteverdian stile concertato that caressed each word with sensuous melismas and velvet harmonies. Porpora was a noted singing teacher of his day, intimately familiar with everything that a voice can do, and possessing a melodic skill that spins long and ornate vocal phrases of almost instrumental effect.

The world has not yet fully discovered the riches of the impressive music libraries and archives of Portugal. They testify to the often complex trajectories followed all over Europe by a repertoire of splendid pieces, many of them showing the extent to which the Italian style had taken root in eighteenth-century Portugal. The superb mass by Pergolesi recorded here is a highly characteristic example. But the ensemble Turicum wanted to go even further in their exploration of this repertoire, accompanying the mass with performances of works by composers now totally (and unjustly) unknown, such as Antonio Gallassi and David Perez, not to mention Leonardo leo, acknowledged in his own time as a supreme master of sacred music.

WORLD PREMIERE in modern times of an unknown comic opera which was recently rediscovered along with other three other Leo operas at the Abbey of Montecassino. L Alidoro (Golden Wings) is a lost-and-found story which explores the themes of love and jealousy from different perspectives in particular age and social status interweaving comedy with more serious reflections. Director Arturo Cirillo explains how in this opera, nothing is happening except a subtle and gorgeous relational game among the seven protagonists.

The Montecassino Monastery recently hosted the score of this comic opera by Leonardo Leo, one of the leading Neapolitan composers of the 18th century, who introduced new stylistic elements to the genre. Cirillo shows in a very exciting way in his direction how nothing actually happens in this opera - apart from a very subtle play of the relationships between the seven protagonists. As with Marivaux, this is about the social differences when the middle class turns to the servants and vice versa, and as in a Feydeauschen comedy, they wander on stage (and leave again) to spy, to portray themselves, or to court someone until everyone is eaten away by doubt.

When one speaks today of the history of the Italian solo concert, one thinks first of Bologna (Torelli, Corelli) and Venice (Albinoni, Vivaldi). It is sometimes overlooked that important impulses for the further development of the genre also emanated from Naples. In addition, cellists in particular owe a lot to the Neapolitans, which this CD aims to clarify. The best known are probably the six concertos by Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) with their light, sometimes gallant tone; of them the A major concerto is represented here along with four individual works by Nicola Fiorenza (died 1764), Nicola Porpora (1686–1768) and Nicola Sabatino (approx. 1705-1796).

Everything is done with affection and great character as well as technical finesse. Such music demands innate timing, and these musicians, under Antonio Florio's direction, have it.

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená hasn't often sung Baroque music. Thus, it is all the more impressive that when she does, she devises really innovative programs with unusual music. Her enthusiasm for the project may be gauged by her comment here: "I could hardly imagine more passionate, savage, uninhibited yet loving and caressing companions for these desperate heroines than Vaclav Luks and the musicians of Collegium 1704." She's right about the musicians, yet the real spotlight is on Kožená herself. The program consists of secular cantatas from the first half of the 18th century; this genre has been neglected amidst the general rediscovery of Baroque opera.

Neapolitan music of the 18th century, so important in the formation of the musical lingua franca of the Classical period, is a massively neglected area wherein lie many riches. Despite his greater interest in opera, Leo was maestro di cappella at the Naples royal chapel and composed a good deal of church music, especially towards the end of his life (he died in 1744), in which sound counterpoint and the clarity of modern melodic developments are successfully combined. These are not sterile exercises in ‘old-style’ polyphony, but works of honest, thoroughly Italianate expression.

Greek mezzo-soprano, Mary-Ellen Nesi, who sings all five works, produces a stream of gloriously firm tone reminiscent of Bernada Fink, another superb mezzo on the scene these days. Her diction and moulding of phrases here is excellent. The two Leonardo Leo settings of the Salve Regina (in C Minor and F Major) which begin the disc are followed by a cello Concerto (also by Leonardo Leo) and a world premiere recording of an Alessandro Scarlatti setting of salve Regina (in C Minor) and then the two better known Pergolesi settings (in C and A Minor) conclude the disc. The cello soloist is lovely too and all works receive excellent support from Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco.

"Lava", "La Diva", "Bel Canto" - these are the names of some of Simone Kermes' highly praised and successful albums. Their new album "Inferno e Paradiso" is thematically about "Heaven and Hell" about "Virtues and Deadly Sins" - musically illustrated with 14 titles from four centuries from baroque to rock, from Bach to Sting, from Vivaldi to Led Zeppelin.

Australian countertenor David Hansen became a hot new presence on the scene in the mid-2010s with a startlingly clear, powerful soprano voice. He's become enough of a phenomenon that skeptics have come out of the woodwork, pointing out flaws in his armor like the relative weakness of his middle register. It's true enough, and on Rivals there is a slight tend to wait for the big fast numbers while the more sedate scenes play out. But such cavils essentially miss the point. As the title suggests, Rivals: Arias for Farinelli & Co. explores not only music written for the 18th century castrato Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), which has been done before, but also for other singers of the time.

With more than a million copies sold, the soundtrack of Gérard Corbiau's film 'Farinelli' contributed considerably to the international renown of Les Talens Lyriques, in 1994. Back then the voice of the castrato Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782), was created using a computer to mix the voices of countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and soprano Ewa Mallas-Godlewska. On stage, in 2011, rather than a falsettist, world-renowned mezzo Ann Hallenberg, was chosen by Christophe Rousset to portray the first rock star in the history of music.

Presented by the Festival della Valle d’Itria, this is the first modern-day staging of Leonardo Leo’s Neapolitan revision of Handel’s Rinaldo, a pastiche with a Mediterranean allure, which was composed in 1718 but considered lost until a few years ago. The story behind this rare opera is fascinating: the score of Handel’s masterpiece was brought illegally to Naples by the castrato singer Nicolò Grimaldi, who had performed Rinaldo in London. Once in Italy, the work was given a makeover by local composers, including Leo, who adapted it to the taste of the Neapolitan public, adding intermezzos and amusing characters.

Charivari Agreable perform a collection of overtures from the Italian Baroque Opera, best described by director Kah-Ming Ng as lucidly crafted for the purpose of turning heads. In a decadent era when the theatregoers antics were often as intriguing as the on-stage performances, these works were composed to thrill, beguile and engage a distracted audience. Charivari Agreable represent a new and very exciting phase of the early music revival, one that enriches the existing repertory and can bring us ever closer to the spirit of the original music.

It won't do to claim the cello concertos of Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) as unknown masterpieces. But if you enjoy hearing a composer struggle with musical materials in an era of transition (might be relevant to today's scene, eh?), you'll find these interesting. Leo was posthumously praised by both Charles Burney and E.T.A. Hoffmann, but today he is known vaguely, if at all, as one of the forerunners of Classical-era opera.