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2024-03-15
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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
[…] 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 Handel Festival, James Gilchrist with The Sixteen, Nick Pritchard with the Academy of Ancient Music at the London Festival of Baroque Music, Allan Clayton with Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the BBC Proms. But I have seen only been two significant stagings of the work, Frederic Wake-Walker's highly abstract one at the Buxton Festival in 2012 with James Gilchrist [see my review], and Katie Mitchell's highly realistic one which was widely shared with Mark Padmore in […]
2023-09-22 08:44:00
Drawing us into Handel's magical world: Amadigi di Gaula from the English Concert with Tim Mead, Mary Bevan, Hilary Cronin, Hugh Cutting
Handel: Amadigi di Gaula - title page of the libretto - London 1715Handel: Amadigi di Gaula; Tim Mead, Mary Bevan, Hilary Cronin, Hugh Cutting, the English Concert, Kristian Bezuidenhout; St Martin in the FieldsReviewed 21 September 2023Much more than a concert, an evening of remarkable theatre where every single performer seemed to draw us in with their vivid enjoymentWhen Mark Minkowski's world premiere recording of Handel's Amadigi di Gaula came out in the early 1990s it was something of a revelation, so much terrific music. I saw James Conway's production for Opera Theatre Company in 1996 and then, virtually nothing. But in the last few years the opera seems to have come back onto everyone's radar, popping up in concert at the 2018 London Handel Festival, and then more recent productions at Garsington and English Touring Opera, directed by James Conway [see my review] along with catching it on-line from Boston […]
2022-04-21 07:05:19
Pärt and White from SANSARA and Fretwork
[…] Paris in Heinrich Schütz - record review 'Ghostly stuff' - the Tippett Quartet and Emma Abbate in Elgar's Piano Quintet at Conway Hall - concert review The very particular sound-world of 17th century London: Blow's Venus and Adonis from Early Opera Company - opera review The 2022 Edinburgh International Festival celebrates the festival's 75th birthday, the final programme by artistic director Fergus Linehan and a return to a full programme in indoor spaces - article London Handel Festival's Acis & Galatea at Stone Nest, a vividly performed evening that moved Handel's piece well away from the pastoral - opera review Home