Handel’s 1737 opera Arminio was hardly an unqualified success. Even Lord Shaftesbury, who found the opera “in every respect excellent & vastly pleasing” admitted “the Town dont (sic) much admire it.”

If Arminio failed to be revived in Handel’s lifetime, it’s certainly worth reviving now. With a thrilling story of the Germanic Prince Hermann, or Arminius, his defeat at the hands of the Roman forces, imprisonment, then escape and final victory, Arminio moves from recitative to aria or duet with relentless speed and agility, leaving the listener as breathless as the singers ought to be (but never are).

And what singers they are. Countertenor Max Emanuel Cencˇic´ excels vocally and dramatically as Arminio, though Canadian soprano Layla...