From left: Andres Lasaga, Kristianna Jones, and Erika Vasallo in “Lo Speziale.” Also featured in the show are Herman Diaz, Jessica Woodard and Juan Quintero. Franz Joseph Haydn spent a lot of time on opera, not just writing it for his royal employers at Esterhaza, but also arranging and conducting the works of other composers for the company.

But while his surviving Italian operas and German singspiels have been unearthed, recorded and mounted in imaginative productions (particularly Il Mondo della Luna, a comedy in which a character is tricked into believing he is on the moon), the operas of Haydn have not secured a regular place in the American repertory. Scholars say Haydn was dissuaded from continuing to write opera after seeing Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, and realizing that a young titan of the form had arisen in Vienna.

But this weekend, the New World School of the Arts presents Lo Speziale, a 1768 opera about an old apothecary who wants to marry his young ward. His young ward is in love with the apothecary’s assistant, but she’s also being pursued by a rich suitor. A fully staged performance of this opera (which is incomplete; some of Act III has been lost over the intervening centuries), it’s directed for the stage by Jeffrey Buchman, and the New World School’s orchestra is conducted by Alfred Gershfeld; Rodney Miller is director of the opera ensemble.

Coffee with Bach: Another early music treat comes to the New World Symphony on Saturday and Sunday with the arrival of Jeannette Sorrell, director of the Cleveland Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire. Sorrell, who last visited South Florida in 2008 with her orchestra at the Tropical Baroque Festival, will lead members of the New World Symphony in music by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi in a presentation called “A Night at Bach’s Coffeehouse” – a reference to Bach’s long tenure leading a student orchestra in weekly public concerts at Zimmerman’s Coffeehouse in Leipzig. Two of the Brandenburg Concertos (Nos. 3 and 4) are on the program, along with Sorrell’s own arrangement of Vivaldi’s “La Folia.”

Mahler’s tragic sense: If early music isn’t your cup of java, the Cleveland Orchestra will take you into the world of Gustav Mahler, with a performance of the master’s Sixth Symphony. Music director Franz Welser-Möst will lead the orchestra in this powerful, immense work, sometimes subtitled “Tragic.” It’s one of the three middle symphonies of Mahler that doesn’t also include voices, and that gives listeners a chance to explore the breadth of Mahler’s orchestral writing. One particularly notable thing about this work is its many passages of chamber music-like delicacy amid all the ferocity; it’s almost as though the spirit of Bach and the great contrapuntists have paid Mahler a visit. It’s an extraordinary piece, and rarely performed because of its length, difficulty and the forces it requires. But devoted Mahlerians will not want to miss it.

Chopin winners announced: In other news, the Chopin Competition has ended in Miami, with first prize going to 17-year-old Eric Lu, a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studies with Jonathan Biss and Robert McDonald. The top prize is a biggie: $75,000, a concert tour throughout the United States, and automatic acceptance into the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Second prize went to Rachel Naomi Kudo, 27, a student of Richard Goode at the Mannes College of Music in New York and Gilbert Kalish at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her prize was $35,000, and she’ll also be at the Warsaw competition, which she has competed in before. Performance details:

Lo Speziale can be seen at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 and 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, at the Joan Lehman Theater on Miami-Dade College’s North Campus, 11380 NW 27th Ave., Miami. Call 305-237-7855 for tickets or visit mwsa.mdc.edu. Jeannette Sorrell and the New World Symphony perform at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 and 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, at the New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach. Tickets start at $39, but you’d better hurry: Both performances appear to be nearly sold out. Call 305-673-3331 or visit www.nws.edu. The Cleveland Orchestra performs Mahler’s Sixth Symphony at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 6 and 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, at the Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Call 305-949-6722 or visit clevelandorchestramiami.com.