A radio stage might not seem the God-given venue for opera, but Boston Baroque’s track record at GBH Calderwood is distinguished. This year’s attraction is Handel’s Ariodante, adapted from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, one of those oceanic Renaissance verse epics that gets little traffic nowadays. As for Ariodante, it too knew centuries of neglect until a revival starring Janet Baker, in 1964, put it on sophisticated international listeners’ radar. Today, Ariodante vies with Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo, and Alcina as one of Handel’s most popular titles. The slender chivalric tale revolves around slander and jealousy. The defining moment comes in the dark of night, at the very midpoint of the plot, when the hero is tricked into thinking he has witnessed his lover admitting another man into her bedchamber, just as in Much Ado About Nothing. The grief-stricken aria that follows, “Scherza infida,” can be spun out from eight to twelve minutes, but while you want the music never to end, quicker is usually better. This time, it will be the sterling mezzo-soprano Megan Moore and the Boston Baroque’s veteran music director Martin Pearlman who determine the pace. Other major players include Amanda Forsythe as the wrongly suspected Ginevra, princess of Scotland, Brandon Cedel as her father the King, Robin Johannsen as her frisky companion Dalinda, and Ann McMahon Quintero as the dastardly Polinesso (pronouns: he/him/his). —Matthew Gurewitsch