It’s been over 40 years since a Baroque opera was performed in the venerable Vienna State Opera.

Indeed, in the city of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Strauss, baroque opera has always been treated as something of an ugly duckling, with its seemingly endless da-capo arias and hopelessly convoluted libretti.

But in recent years, Vienna’s other opera house – the much smaller jewel-box of the Theater an der Wien – has been starting to change all that, staging sell-out runs of works by the likes of Monteverdi, Handel, Vivaldi and Scarlatti.

And with the early music movement and period performance practice now an integral part of the repertoire of most of the world’s other major opera houses, Vienna’s new chief, Frenchman Dominique Meyer, thought it high time the house on the city’s prestigious Ringstrasse should follow suit.

Nevertheless for such a venture to succeed – Viennese audiences will gladly sit through six hours or more of Wagner without complaint, but balk at the idea of four hours of Handel – Mr Meyer had to have at least a couple of aces up his sleeve.

His first came in the choice of work: Alcina is one of the best-loved operas by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), but which has never been performed at the Staatsoper before.