San Francisco goes baroque with performances of Handel‘s Alcina, Tolomeo, and Rinaldo.
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen shows that he’s at the top of a crowded pack of countertenors in two recent New York performances with Philharmonia Baroque.
Under the baton of Nicholas McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale proves they have a magic touch in a program of Rameau and Handel.
As Messiah season begins, Christopher Corwin reports on two of Handel’s forays into the Old Testament.
Chris’s Cache celebrates Ewa Podles‘s long connection with Handel by featuring her in three complete, decidedly un-HIP operas spanning over twenty years
Since my previous CD round-up review the onslaught of solo recital disks of 18th century (and sometimes also 17th) vocal music has continued unabated.
Last night should have seen my favorite of this season’s revivals but instead Trove Thursday must step up with Jean-Marie Leclair’s irresistibly captivating Scylla et Glaucus conducted by Christophe Rousset.
By an astounding coincidence, on Monday night Handel’s third and fourth extant operas were being performed simultaneously across the street from each other at Lincoln Center.
The news of Nicholas McGegan’s retirement came as quite a shock to me.
Caramoor imported the venerable West-Coast period orchestra Philharmonia Baroque to perform Atalanta, an obscure pastoral work by Handel.
On Saturday Juilliard 415 welcomed the sterling 10-member Belgian group Vox Luminis for a striking program of “Handel in Rome.”
For my early self-birthday gift “Trove Thursday” offers a Handel-orgy of rarely done works.
A rollicking performance of his delightful comic opera Der geduldige Sokrates featuring a fine cast and the magnificent Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by René Jacobs.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
In a striking program at Carnegie Hall last night, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s), with guest vocalist Susan Graham, brought together a wide array of musical proclivities—good and good bad taste alike.
Director R.B. Schlather and his team explored Handel’s Orlando and the results, as seen at Monday night’s final presentation, proved uncommonly stimulating.
His shaved head in striking contrast to his dark beard and glinting eyes, the implacable Tartar conqueror glowers at us from the CD cover, while the uncropped photo of countertenor Xavier Sabata (above) is even more disturbing, featuring his raised fist and forearm tightly wrapped in a leather belt.
Notable purveyor of mayhem and infanticide Medea has lately been missing from the local operatic scene, but Sunday afternoon sections of the recently renovated Alice Tully Hall were singed by Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle’s blazing incarnation of the Greek sorceress.
We must be doubly grateful that The English Concert’s recent Theodora was so quickly followed by the American Classical Orchestra’s fine Samson on Tuesday evening at Alice Tully Hall.
Joined by the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, The English Concert concluded the US leg of its current tour at Carnegie Hall Sunday with a complete performance of the darkly moving Theodora, Handel’s penultimate oratorio.
Lincoln Center hosted two milestones this week.
For decades thousands and thousands have attended Handel’s Messiah (usually around Christmas or more appropriately near Easter) making it easily one of the most widely known works of classical music.
Nearly 30 years after a Handel opera last played there, Carnegie Hall presented The English Concert opening a three-year opera-oratorio project on Sunday afternoon with Radamisto.
Rule Britannia? Often during the Olympics that famous number from Thomas Arne’s 1740 Alfred echoed in my ears.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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