Barry Morell News
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2024-04-25
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2023-11-13 07:42:00
Plenty of food for thought & some terrific singing: Oliver Mears' staging of Handel's Jephtha at the Royal Opera with a towering performance from Allan Clayton in the title role
Handel: Jephtha - Jennifer France - Royal Opera House (Photo: Marc Brenner)Handel: Jephtha; Allan Clayton, Alice Coote, Jennifer France, Cameron Shahbazi, Brindley Sherratt, director: Oliver Mears, conductor: Laurence Cummings; Royal Opera HouseReviewed 10 November 2023An incandescent performance by Allan Clayton in the title role with superb support the other soloists anchors the imaginative if flawed dramatic recreation of Handel's final oratorioIn adapting the story of Jephtha from the Bible for a dramatic work for Handel, the librettist Thomas Morell had to use quite a bit of imagination, to create a three hour drama out of the relatively curt Biblical references. A fine classicist, Morrell introduced elements from Greek drama, creating a work that it is tempting to see as naturally having a place on the stage. Concert performances of Handel's Jephtha are relatively common and I have seen many fine incarnations of the title role including John Mark Ainsley at the London […]
2022-03-16 18:21:00
Opéra Bastille Images: Agathe Poupeney / OnP Wozzeck – Johan Reuter Drum Major – John Daszak Andres – Tansel Akzeybek Captain – Gerhard Siegel Doctor – Falk Struckmann First Apprentice – Mikhail Timoshenko Second Apprentice – Tobias Westman Fool – Heinz Göhrig Marie – Eva-Maria Westbroek Margret – Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur Soldier – Vincent Morell Actors – Nathalie Baunaure, Fitzgerald Berthon, Andrea Fabi, Manon LheureuxWilliam Kentridge (director)Luc De Wit (co-director)Sabine Theunissen (set designs)Greta Goiris (costumes)Catherine Meyburgh (video)Urs Schönebaum (lighting)Kim Gunning (video operator) Maîtrise des-Hauts-de Seins/Children’s Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: Gaël Darchen), Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: Ching-Lien Wu) Orchestra of the Opéra national de ParisSusanna Mälkki (conductor) Four-and-a-halfyears ago, I saw William Kentridge’s then new Wozzeck at the Salzburg Festival. I found myself somewhat nonplussed by its more distanced, alienating aspects, thinking them better suited […]
Royal Opera House (The Guardian)
2022-02-05 12:30:07
Royal Opera House; Kings Place, LondonIt comes with a health warning, but Katie Mitchell’s perceptive, largely cogent staging of this rarely seen work, performed by a committed cast, allows Handel’s genius to shine through The wry observation – no joke given the seriousness of the material – that the Royal Opera’s new staging of Theodora failed to deliver the sex and violence promised may have worn thin by the time you read this. All to the good. Katie Mitchell’s take on Handel’s late oratorio, first performed in London in 1750, is far superior to the blizzard of warning signals that preceded it, and far less radical too. Most of the advance alerts were irrelevant for anyone with even mildly robust 21st-century sensibilities. This tragedy of a virginal Christian woman persecuted by the Romans, set to an English libretto by Thomas Morell, contains some of the most affecting and inward-looking music Handel […]
2022-02-03 08:17:50
Handel’s oratorio Theodora is unusual among his compositions in that it has created more of a splash in the modern day than it ever did during his lifetime. It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on 16 March 1750 but ran for just three performances and was only revived once in 1755. Although the fact there had been an earthquake a week before the premiere meant that some of the composer’s usual patrons had fled the city, the real reason for the work’s unpopularity was undoubtedly its plot. (Theodora) Julia Bullock, (Irene) Joyce DiDonato, ROH Theodora 2022 © Camilla Greenwell Set in the fourth century, Theodora, which has a libretto by Thomas Morell, tells the story of a nobly-born Christian woman who falls foul of Valens, the Roman governor of Antioch, when he issues a decree that all citizens should sacrifice to the goddesses Venus and Flora. […]
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