The project to record all of the 450-odd works by Vivaldi held by the National University Library of Turin proceeds apace. It only seems yesterday that I was reviewing the opera "Orlando Furioso". For that set a very radical band of period performers was chosen, the Ensemble Matheus. L’Astrée – a Turin group in spite of its French name – are less radical in the sense that they don’t make their instruments rasp and bite, but I would say no less imaginative. With the help of a really lifelike recording – the instruments truly seemed to be in my listening room – the music just leaps off the page.

In this second volume of the complete recording of Vivaldi's chamber concertos by L'Astrée, three of these fascinating works are coupled with three chamber cantatas. All these treasures of course come from the incomparable collections of the Biblioteca nazionale in Turin, but the link between the two repertoires does not stop there. First of all, the energy and virtuosity that this composer of genius requires of his musicians are very much the same, whether he is writing for the human voice or for the various instruments used in the concertos, which go from a single solo flute in the concerto La notte RV 104 to the extravagant combination, in RV 97, of viola d'amore, two horns, two oboes and bassoon.

Rossini liked to write operas about women (specifically mezzo-sopranos) who were smarter than the men around them, such as Rosina in "The Barber of Seville" and Angelina in "La Cenerentola." This charming, melodious bit of operatic fluff, composed before either of those two better-known operas, is dedicated to the proposition that an Italian woman is a match for any man or group of men. The thesis is tested in an extreme situation; Isabella (Larmore) is shipwrecked on the coast of a place where shipwrecked Europeans were routinely enslaved and, if they were women, consigned to a harem.

The Maggio Musicale in Florence is the oldest and one of the most famous music festivals in Italy. When it’s director, Zubin Mehta, celebrated his 70th birthday, the staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff was part of the festivities. The opera was conducted by Zubin Mehta himself and directed by Luca Ronconi.

Composed for Venice in 1837, just a year-and-a-half after the fantastic success of Lucia di Lammermoor, Pia de' Tolomei "pleased altogether", in the composer's words. He revised it a couple of times thereafter and it was shown at various theaters as distant as Malta until 1855, after which it disappeared. It takes place in 13th-century Siena: Pia is married to Nello; his cousin Ghino loves her but she refuses his advances. Ghino angrily accuses Pia of adultery with an unknown man, who turns out to be Pia's brother, Rodrigo, and Nello imprisons her. Ghino eventually feels remorse and confesses his deception, but not soon enough to save Pia from being poisoned by Nello.

Cecilia Bartoli remains one of the world's finest Rossini singers and she proves it again with Il Turco in Italia, her 1st complete Rossini recording since 1993. The performance was recorded in Milan, with the power of the La Scala Orchestra & Chorus and the best Rossini an cast possible, led - of course - by Cecilia Bartoli's coloratura, more brilliant than ever.

Meyerbeer composed Il Crociato in just over one year, between September 1822 and the following autumn, at the end of the German composer's so-called "Italian period". Although this is an opera of great dramatic and musical complexity its première was highly successful with both audience and critics, one commentator accurately describing it as "a building of highlyapplauded construction". The plot, so rich in events, skilfully weaves historical-religious elements with private happenings and feelings. Against the background of the interreligious conflict between Christians and Muslims, the story of the main characters unfolds in an efficacious alternation of grand choral scenes and solo numbers with arias and cabalettas.

Antonio Caldara was a mainstay at the Hapsburg court of Charles VI, and this large-scale oratorio (almost 80 minutes long) to a text by the renowned Metastasio was premiered at the royal chapel in 1730. It's a series of recitatives, arias, and intermittent choral interjections telling the story of the Passion and meditating on it. The overall mood is devotional, but the attractive music occasionally startles, as in the trombone accompaniment to the soprano aria "Dovunque il guardo." The attractive soloists wrap their voices around sonorous verbal felicities, and Fabio Biondi's fine early-music band plays with verve, making this a welcome exploration of a substantial work by an important contemporary of Vivaldi.

Cavalli composed more than 40 operas. Less than a dozen have been recorded. L'Orione an opera in three acts and a prologue is about No. 27 and was first heard in Milan in 1653 to celebrate the election of Ferdinand IV as King of the Romans. This September 27, 1998 performance (in a new critical edition by Andrea Marcon derived from the manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice) in Venice is the first in the modem era. The plot is derived from the ancient Greek legend of the giant Orion told in Ovid's Fasti, rewritten in Natale Conte's Mythologiae, and finally dramatized in Francesco Meloslo's libretto for Cavalli. The libretto takes the opportunity for humor, using the plight of the blind Orion to make fun of the gods, as was common in so many Venetian librettos of the time.

Written in French in 1828 for the Paris Opéra, Le Comte Ory has maintained its success to this day. Re-using some of the music of his Viaggio a Reims, Rossini turns the disguise-based libretto into a spirited play of erotic lightness. Lluís Pasqual’s witty and clever production was recorded at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro. The dynamic, international young cast is headed by tenor Yijie Shi in the title role, Laura Polverelli as his astute page and María José Moreno as Countess Adèle. Paolo Carignani conducts with verve and brio.

In recent years not only music festivals but also important opera theatres have turned their attention towards the neglected masterpieces of the lyrical repertoire. Thus also Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, in a commendable effort, staged this Pia de’ Tolomei by Donizetti, with some of the best singers available today for this type of repertoire. Initial response to this opera, which was performed for the first time in 1837, was ambiguous, so much so that Donizetti re-worked it as many as three times. The version here recorded is that of the critical edition recently published by Ricordi, with the tragic finale originally conceived by the composer. The listener will undoubtedly wonder, once more, at Donizetti’s wealth of melodic inspiration, especially when it comes to the character of Pia, wonderfully interpreted, here, by Patrizia Ciofi.