In the grassy gardens of princely Italian villas, a boisterous George Friderich Handel found himself surrounded by the greatest thinkers and artists of his day. During these weekend meetings, suggestively called Conversations, ideas would be passed around and relentlessly dissected. Love, death, loss, goodness — no concept was found to be off-limits, and the loftier idea, the better. In this makeshift Eden, a young Handel experimented and pushed his art to the farthest reaches, where he seemed to string together the pearls with striking rapidity. These pearls were, in the spirit of the Baroque, audacious, misshapen, and vivid, but never without Handel’s signature attention to beauty.

Twelfth Night presents a typically spectacular set of music that would have been heard in these gardens — vocal and instrumental music of Handel is joined by Porpora, Corelli, Merula, and Mazzochi.