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.
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.
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.
Jakub Józef Orlinski‘s “Stille amare” packed a lot of punch in terms of dramatic intensity.
French conductor Emmanuelle Haïm debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend, leading performances of Handel and Purcell.
This week’s star-spangled “Trove Thursday” offers the second crazy-quilt installment of divas in the wrong language.
It never occurred to me that each tape had to be individually dubbed or that others, maybe many, many others, might also be ordering tapes at the same time.
My impossible wish would be to hear one of the great castrati who dominated opera for most of the 18th century.
That’s what it must have been like in 1726 London when Handel composed Alessandro for perhaps the three most famous (and expensive) singers of the day.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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