With its stylish Italian cast directed by Rinaldo Alessandrini...this is a precious recording...there are a few moments of slack ensemble, but the performance has a sense of dramatic spontaneity and a linearity often missing from more heavily edited versions. Sivlia Frigato is suitably dewy-voiced in the title-role.

Frigato's contributions are sweetly endearing...Alessandrini and his continuo colleagues ensure the drama zips along at an intensive pace, although the battery of full-frontal plucking wears thin after a while.

The superb cast assembled by Alessandrini reads like a list of the luminaries of the current Italian early-music scene, and all involved clearly recognize that here it is not beautiful singing but the cleanly articulated and expressive delivery of the text that is required. While it would be invidious to single out individual members from what is essentially an ensemble piece, I can’t resist the temptation to except the Arcetro (the friend of Orfeo) of that wonderfully idiosyncratic tenor Gianpaolo Fagotto.

Alessandrini and his elite Italian Renaissance/baroque specialists...give as much weight to Rinuccini’s words as to Caccini’s notes, but the entire “complesso” shines in the exquisite and thrilling madrigalian choruses. A fabulous disc.

wonderfully characterful singing...the story-telling power of the music is never compromised. It's a must for anyone curious about the beginnings of opera in the early 17th century.

The gorgeous contralto of Sara Mingardo (Daphne and Persephone) is the real highlight and Furio Zanasi is a solid Orpheus; some of the down-table singers are less enchanting.