Time was when early music was a 6 p.m. concert, Baroque began with Bach and ended with Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, and speeds were so portentously slow that you’d have to start the B Minor Mass shortly after lunch in order to make it home in time for bed.
Those dark days — caught between Baroque and a hard place — are over now. Period ensembles have never been better or more numerous, Handel and Monteverdi are a staple of operatic programming, and even Vivaldi, Cavalli, Cesti and Steffani are making their mark. Baroque is back, and this time it’s here to stay.
One of the biggest success stories of recent years is the Globe’s new indoor theatre. Opened just last year, it’s already hard to remember musical life before the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Seating just 340, its meticulously recreated 17th-century interior is the perfect frame for period operas intended to place their performers in knee-groping, beard-stroking proximity to their audience.
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