Claudio Monteverdi, Il ballo dell Ingrate & John Blow, Venus and Adonis

Leeds Baroque Orchestra and Choir directed by Peter Holman

Two magical pieces of music theatre written for seventeenth-century courts. Il ballo delle Ingrate is a cautionary tale in which Venus asks Pluto to release a group of Mantuan court ladies from Underworld as a terrible warning against being hard-hearted in love. The goddess of love also appears in the masque Venus and Adonis, written for Charles II's court, played by his mistress Moll Davies with their young daughter Lady Mary Tudor as Cupid. Cupid has accidentally wounded his mother with one of his arrows, which causes her to fall in love with the hunter Adonis. Tragedy strikes when she send him off hunting, only for him to be fatally wounded by a boar.

Tickets: £18
£16 (advance saver - available until 4 June)
Free - Students and Under 16s

Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall