Canadian Opera Company.

Handel hasn't exactly dominated the North American stage over the past century. It wasn't until January 1999 that the Canadian Opera Company staged its first Handel opera, Xerxes, until April 2002 that it staged its second, Julius Caesar, and until this past October that it staged its third, Rodelinda, despite all of them being long acknowledged masterpieces.

Rodelinda marked Tim Albery's debut as a director of Handel, and it turned out to be a mismatch. Albery's overly busy, Chekhov-inspired staging combined with designer Dany Lyne's unconvincing, early 20th-century costuming and bleak unit set to take the audience away from, rather than closer to, the ethos of Handel's music.

Luckily, the music found itself in the knowing hands of the debuting English conductor, Harry Bicket, who drew surprisingly stylish playing from a modern-instrument orchestra of limited Baroque experience. He guided a strong cast, whose tendency to under-ornament found compensation in its fresh-sounding vocalism.

Debuting American soprano Danielle de Niese made a particularly attractive Rodelinda opposite debuting American countertenor Gerald Thompson as her husband, Bertarido. His spectacular singing of "Vivi tiranno" virtually stopped the show. Other notable contributions came from tenor Michael Colvin as the usurper Grimoaldo, countertenor Daniel Taylor as Unulfo and mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Bertarido's sister, Eduige, whose grotesque desktop coupling with Garibaldo (debuting British baritone Peter Savidge) offered one of the production's most gratuitously tasteless touches.

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The last tragedie lyrique concocted by the composer and his distinguished librettist, Jean-Philippe Quinault, Armide was regarded in the 18th century as their masterpiece, a rare (for its time) psychological drama with a subject chosen by Louis XIV. It was drawn from Tasso's epic poem Jerusalem Delivered, in which a fatal love story is set against the Muslim-versus-Christian background of the First Crusade.

The elegant production designed by Dora Rust d'Eye (costumes) and Gerard Gauci (sets) represented Opera Atelier at its best. Choreographer Jeannette Zingg wove extensive dance sequences into an overall staging by Marshall Pynkoski notable for its stylishness. Andrew Parrott conducted the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir (the latter in proscenium-flanking boxes) with a splendid sense of pace and phrasing.

As the two virginal lovers, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Novacek (Armide) and tenor Colin Ainsworth (Renaud) appropriately dominated a well-balanced cast that also featured sopranos Monica Whicher and Jennie Such as Armide's confidantes, bass-baritone Curtis Sullivan as Hate, baritone Olivier Laquerre and tenor Michiel Schrey as Christian soldiers and baritone Andrew Mahon as the messenger, Aronte.

If Lully's formal style makes Armide an unlikely candidate for the standard repertory, the subtle beauties of its text declamation suffice to whet the appetite for more revivals of the library-shelved works of Louis XIV's favorite composer.