William Guanbo Su and Ann Hallenberg are compelling in The English Concert’s presentation of Handel‘s Hercules at Carnegie Hall.
As Messiah season begins, Christopher Corwin reports on two of Handel’s forays into the Old Testament.
Bergamo hosts an annual Donizetti festival, Salzburg presents a Mozart-woche every January, and of course there is Bayreuth for Wagner. But Handel gets two festivals every spring, and this year I was finally able to attend one of them.
Those of us in New York City who relish 17th century Italian vocal music were offered an enticing banquet over the past few weeks.
There is a strong case to be made that George Fridrich Handel is the composer most suited to the present moment.
If April is the cruelest month, it may be that spring’s arrival brings far too many things to do and see.
The English Concert’s annual Handel tour brings Solomon conducted by Harry Bicket to the US beginning Sunday March 5. In anticipation, Chris’s Cache offers Solomon plus four other oratorios by the master: Belshazzar, Hercules, Saul and Jephtha, all via broadcasts for which I feel a personal connection.
“Trove Thursday” presents for the third annual installment of “Handel for my Birthday” a wickedly ideal Felicity Palmer dominating Agrippina.
Beauteous Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique appeared Sunday afternoon with the visiting Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer.
Here’s a quick sprint through some recent (and a few maybe not-so-very-recent) Handel CDs that have been stacking up.
This week’s “Trove Thursday” offers Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice featuring Anthony Rolfe Johnson.
“Trove Maundy Thursday” offers a recent un-HIP version of Handel’s Messiah.
Joyce DiDonato’s atest album, In War & Peace: Harmony through music, is more specific than it sounds.
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
For many in New York and around the world, if the name William Christie appears on a concert or opera program, it’s a must-attend.
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.
Ambiguity. That’s the theme of the operas of Benjamin Britten (ennobled as Baron Britten of Aldeburgh).
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.
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
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.
As if last week’s survey wasn’t enough, a few more recent diva-recital disks remain worthy of attention particularly since they arrive from five front-rank singers.
Many American opera-lovers take the “Grand Tour”—a pilgrimage to Europe to attend opera at its great houses—Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera in London or Otello at La Scala in Milan, or perhaps for the more well-heeled a visit to the summer festivals of Glyndebourne, Salzburg or Aix-en-Provence.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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