Handel: "Agrippina" (Philips) Dial-a-track code: 1201

Handel wasn't always stately and plump, as this sparkling satirical comedy, written when he was just 24, effortlessly demonstrates moving along at a cracking pace and looking at the everyday activities of ordinary Roman royalty through a very hungry young eye indeed. The characters - the emperor Claudius, his wife Agrippina and her son Nero, the flirtatious Poppea and a brace of minor courtiers - are as weird a bunch of dudes as ever trod the boards, and are sung here with unflagging style and meticulous attention to detail by a luxury cast which includes the glorious bass Alastair Miles as Claudius, the eminent mezzo Della Jones - agile and elegant as ever - as Agrippina, and no fewer than three awesomely accomplished counter-tenors, Derek Lee Ragin as the slippery, feline Nerone, Michael Chance as the hapless good guy, Otho, and Jonathan Peter Kenny - who has breathed life into a number of Handel heroes for "'Opera Theatre Company" - as the self-centred Narciso.complexity, is best left for another day - but what is most striking about this three-CD set is the sense of fun with which conductor John Eliot Gardiner imbues Handel's delightful score - the arias, much shorter than those in the later works, tumble out one after another in a cascade of glorious coloratura. If you still haven't got a handle on Handel's operas, this is an ideal place to start.