I'm not quite sure what phenomenon explains it, but there has been a welcome eruption lately of 
Handel action. Mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager released a rave-worthy all-Handel disc last year, and tenors Ian Bostridge and the impossibly gentle Mark Padmore also issued admirable attempts within a couple months of each other this year. Especially notable on each is the duet-with-soprano Thus steals the morn from L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, with Bostridge being more leisurely than Padmore, but I prefer Padmore's plaintiveness. (There's an mp3 of an aria from Esther on Padmore's site.) There have also been not one but two recordings of Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno led by Emmanuelle Haim and Rinaldo Alessandrini. (Act now while supplies last.) The most recent entry into the Handel aria disc category is soprano Maria Bayo, with sharply etched selections from Giulio Cesare, Rinaldo, and others.
Soprano Danielle de Niese joins the club in October when her all-Handel disc is released by Decca (snappy new MySpace page here). She's been on DecSimp's radar since she played an unapologetic Poppea in 2005 in Chicago Opera Theater's Il coronazione di Poppea, unfurling Monteverdi's late writing effortlessly. And I can't resist mentioning the DVD of Giulio Cesare in which she plays Cleopatra, in a performance summed up simply by a colleague, who reviews a great deal of opera at the country's major houses and whose privacy shall be honored, as, "HOT."
Playlist
Maria Bayo Handel Opera arias and cantatas; Capriccio Stravagante; Skip Sempe, conductor (Naive)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Brahms Symphony No. 1 & Variations on a Theme of Haydn; Marek Janowski, conductor (Pentatone)
Concerto Italiano Scarlatti: Madrigals, Dixit Dominus, Magnificat; Rinaldo Alessandrini, conductor (Naive)
William Byrd Second Service & Consort Anthems Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford (which has an awe-inspiring chapel), Fretwork (harmonia mundi, available September 11)
Sviatoslav Richter Richter Plays Beethoven, Vol. 2 (Decca)
Richter Richter Plays Schubert (Decca)
Vladimir Ashkenazy Beethoven: Diabelli Variations (Decca)
BBC Proms broadcasts, with performances by/of Mark Padmore and the English Concert, Leila Josefowicz and Oliver Knussen, Elgar's The Apostles, and Gustavo Dudamel y el Sistema.
Padmore photo by Marco Borggreve