Da capo days of summer
San Francisco goes baroque with performances of Handel‘s Alcina, Tolomeo, and Rinaldo.
Alan Curtis
35 pieces since 2011.
35
pieces
16
years
The René Jacobs Giulio Cesare is so overrated
George Frideric Handel (born 341 years ago on Monday) composed over 40 operas including many masterpieces, but his Giulio Cesare is the one that everyone knows best.
Mother is mothering
Marina Rebeka comes tantalizingly close to triumph in Cherubini’s Médée at Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
The Real thing
Surrounded by security and greeted by a bevy of cameras, Su Majestad la Reina Sofía brought a bit of excitement to an evening that didn’t end up being all that musically rewarding.
Tour de force
In their realization of Alcina, Harry Bicket and his ensemble recreated a dramatically vivid and musically nuanced character study out of the opera’s central figures.
Fancy pants
A recent discussion here about Gianna Rolandi prompts Trove Thursday to present the American soprano in a rare trouser role in an even rarer opera, Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e I Curiazi paired with Anna Caterina Antonacci.
Spouse of pain
Dame Janet Baker turns 87 tomorrow and Trove Thursday celebrates with Handel’s rare Admeto conducted by the great Sir Anthony Lewis in which Baker’s bold Alceste vies with Sheila Armstrong’s sparkling Antigona for her deluded husband Admeto’s affections.
Love increases courage
An acclaimed revival earlier this season of Sebastián Durón’s Coronis (that name, yikes!) reminded me that Trove Thursday has been ignoring baroque zarzuelas.
What women want
While isolated opera-lovers intently navigate the deluge of streaming videos being made available, I’ve been listening rather than viewing.
What is normal?
That question hung in the air when Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid revived Tomás Bretón’s opera Farinelli for first time since its premiere in 1902.
Castles made of sand
Jakub Józef Orlinski‘s “Stille amare” packed a lot of punch in terms of dramatic intensity.
Roman holiday
A brace of Handel operas at the George Enescu International Festival.
Made in the shade
Here’s a quick sprint through some recent (and a few maybe not-so-very-recent) Handel CDs that have been stacking up.
The wedding singers
Caramoor imported the venerable West-Coast period orchestra Philharmonia Baroque to perform Atalanta, an obscure pastoral work by Handel.
Bringing up Babylon
“Trove Valentine’s Day” further stokes Semiramis-fever with another of the celebrated works about the infamous queen: La Semiramide riconosciuta, a superb 1729 opera by Nicola Porpora.
I love you to death
New York fans of 17th century Italian vocal music should be rejoicing this month.
Angry in a noble manner
“Trove Thursday” presents a live Motezuma conducted by Alan Curtis with Karina Gauvin, Sonia Prina, Mary-Ellen Nesi, Vito Priante and Ann Hallenberg (as Hernán Cortés!).
One Handel, one heart
I don’t usually attend a performance of an opera I’ve known well most of my life expecting a revelation.
“Troppo” notte
Thanks to the generosity of a parterre reader, “Trove Thursday” presents a rare recording from the famed Carnegie Hall series curated by Matthew Epstein to commemorate Handel’s tercentenary.
Woeful countenance
“Trove Thursday” steps in with one of René Jacobs’s favorite and rarest rediscoveries, Francesco Conti’s marvelous Don Chisciotte in Sierra Morena from 1719.
Queen sized
The last day of December a parcel arrived in the mail containing an absolute delight: “Semiramide—La Signora Regale.” One of best vocal recordings of 2014, this sumptuous 2-CD set on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi features the marvelous Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus and includes 90 minutes of rarely-heard music written for the legendary Babylonian queen.
In witch we serve
Sunday afternoon’s intermittently involving concert performance of Handel’s Alcina at Carnegie Hall starred an unusually intense Joyce DiDonato as a powerful sorceress blinded by her romantic delusions.
Dancing with the star
After listening to “Stella di Napoli,” her mightily impressive new CD
of rare bel canto arias just released by Erato, I felt many of the old sparks reigniting.
Belief in a higher power
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”