Handel Festival News
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- Halle (Saale)
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2024-03-19
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2024-02-02 11:48:00
From forgotten arias in a pasticcio based on Balzac's Sarrasine to a forgotten instrument: Göttingen International Handel Festival announces the 2024 programme under George Petrou
George Petrou (Photo: Alciro Theodoro Da Silva)The Göttingen International Handel Festival dates right back to the 1920s and though styles have changed the festival has always been notable for new ideas and new thinking about 18th century music. This year's festival under artistic director George Petrou has just been announced. Running from 9 to 20 May 2024 under the title Kaleidescope, the festival features not only music by Handel and his contemporaries, but modern reflections too, as Petrou wants the programme to bridge the gap between the 18th and 21st centuries, revealing the gap between Handel's music and the pressing issues of our time.The opera staging this year focuses not on one of Handel's operas but on arias discarded by the composer, usually for dramaturgical reasons. George Petrou has fashioned a pasticcio using these arias with a plot based on Balzac's novella, Sarrasine about the sculptor Sarrasine's love for a singer, Zambinella, regarding […]
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 […]
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 […]
2023-06-12 20:46:00
Leipzig Opera. Handel's Giulio Cesare. June 11, 2023.
Leipzig Oper. Opernhaus Saal, Leipzig. Parkett links (Row 14-33, 56 euros).Selfie taken at intermission. We have know David and Vivian since our Cornell days in the 1970s.Story. See previous post.Ruben Dubrovsky - Conductor. Giulio Cesare - Yuriy Mynenko, Cornelia - Ulrike Schneider, Sesto - Kathrin Goring, Cleopetra - Olga Jelinkova, Tolomeo - Remy Bres, Achilla - Franz Xavier Schlecht/Matthias Hoffmann.While Bach Fest continues in Leipzig, Handel Festival is happening in the nearby town of Halle. Tonight's opera was also part of the Handel Festival. We enjoyed very much our encounter with the opera about 10 years ago at the Met, so were looking forward to this event.Unfortunately the performance didn't have English surtitles, and despite having read the synopsis, having seen the opera before, and having David explain to us the plot, we were quite lost during the close-to-three hours of music and acting. Things on stage do not unfold […]