Figures from the Antique was the title of the latest instalment of the Wigmore's Bostridge Project: Ancient and Modern, in which Ian Bostridge and some of his regular musical collaborators examine ways in which composers re-invent history and myth in the image of their own times.

On this occasion, he shared the platform with Angelika Kirchschlager and the programme consisted of 18th- and 20th-century solo cantatas on classical themes.

The evening ultimately belonged to Kirchschlager, who closed it with a startling performance of Britten's Phaedra. Britten wrote the cantata in 1975 for Janet Baker, who sang it with tragic nobility and restraint. Kirchschlager, altogether less contained in it, views it in terms of obsessional neurosis, reaching near mania in Phaedra's catastrophic declaration of love to Hippolytus.

There were occasional imperfections. She dropped too many consonants and her full-throttle approach occasionally felt unremitting. But she made us rethink the work from scratch, which is always the mark of a major reinterpretation. And Kirchschlager's performance was unquestionably that.

The rest of the evening, though often superb, didn't have quite the same impact. Kirchschlager's wild way with Phaedra also characterised her performance of Handel's Lucrezia, though weakened its force by being score-bound throughout. Bostridge, at his freshest and least mannered, had fun with Alessandro Scarlatti's Io Son Neron l'Imperator del Mondo and delivered Satie's La Mort de Socrate with wonderful limpidity and elegance.

Two instrumental ensembles were involved. The Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon impressed in Satie and Britten. Laurence Cummings and the period instruments of the English Concert did fine things with Handel and Scarlatti. They also gave us Corelli's D Minor Sonata for Violin and Continuo "La Follia", its exacting solo lines beautifully sculpted by Nadja Zwiener.