Wolfgang Katschner and Lautten Compagney provide lean, skilfully balanced and astute theatrical support. Clever artistic programming means that each half starts with a striking overture and culminates in an engaging duet, via a series of vividly contrasting musical styles, orchestral colours, speeds and moods.

This is a fascinating concept on several levels if you’ve even a passing interest in the highways and byways of eighteenth-century opera: as well as offering an opportunity to compare and contrast various composers’ responses to two of Metastasio’s ‘most fortunate children’ (Semiramide and Siroe), the programme explores the fluidity of gender-identity on the baroque stage and occasionally plays fast and loose on its own terms (Zazzo, for instance, taking on an aria for Handel’s Bradamante).