Conductor Christian Curnyn has been best-known as the director of the Early Opera Company, which he founded, and which, true to its name, specializes in Baroque and early Classical operatic repertory. He has also been noted as a daring stage director who introduced sexual and other unconventional themes into operatic productions. Curnyn founded the Early Opera Company in 1994. By 2005, the company had attracted recording company attention, making its debut on the Chandos label with a performance of Handel's Partenope, HWV 27. Curnyn has also conducted orchestral music with both early music ensembles and modern symphony orchestras. He led the Early Opera Company in a 2022 recording of Handel's rarely heard early opera Amadigi di Gaula, HWV 11. In 2025, he issued a recording of Jephtha by Maurice Greene, the earliest native-born English composer of oratorios.
