Baroque music was not all po-faced seriousness. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Platée, Domenico Scarlatti’s Cat Fugue and Biber’s Battaglia are just some pieces that served the citizens of the era a healthy dose of humour in their theatrical entertainment. Like any other society, they had their moments of levity.

Director Eugene Lynch returns to Pinchgut with more amusement in this collection of three mini-operas and a flute concerto, deftly interweaving their narratives. Soprano Ariana Ricci, tenor Nicholas Jones, baritone Morgan Pearse, actor Mitch Riley and flautist Melissa Farrow perform with a small period instrumental ensemble from the Orchestra of the Antipodes, directed from the harpsichord by Erin Helyard.

Nicholas Jones in Coffee and a Dead Canary. Photo © Cassandra Hannagan

With visual gags aplenty, the production is themed around the unlikely pairing of coffee and a canary, set in the period when coffee arrived in Europe in the mid-17th century. Drinkers fell victim to its intoxicating grip. Not much has changed as I write this caffeine-fuelled review.

Coffee was considered a seductive and stimulating brew. Monks drank it to stay awake through the night to pray, and it was even considered seditiously akin to...