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.
An exciting cast digs their claws into a heady production of La Calisto at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.
The Jupiter Ensemble with Lea Desandre and Anthony Roth Costanzo offers sleek and sexy HIP inaugurates the Frick Collection’s new Stephen A. Schwartzman Auditorium
When the birthdays start to pile up in the double digits in big round numbers, you start to examine your past and review what you have done with your life.
There is a strong case to be made that George Fridrich Handel is the composer most suited to the present moment.
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.
A stack of noteworthy recent baroque vocal CDs on my desk has been staring at me for weeks, so I’m tackling them on Handel’s birthday before the Met roars back into action beginning this weekend.
There are no words superlative enough to describe this celebration of Orpheus’ grief, and I truly applaud San Francisco Opera for presenting such food for thought that will definitely resonate long after with me.
This tenor must be the finest classical singer in the world today.
Joyce DiDonato admits that she is “a problem solver, a dreamer, and—yes I’m a belligerent optimist.”
Last Wednesday the 92nd Street Y presented the friendliest-ever episode of American Gladiators when Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres continued their bel canto bromance with a delirious (almost) all-Rossini recital accompanied by Myra Huang.
Trove Thursday begins February with two striking versions of Rossini’s Tancredi.
While seasonally-awkward streams of Messiah abound, Trove Thursday turns instead to Berlioz’s exquisite L’Enfance du Christ from francophone forces including Stéphanie d’ Oustrac, Bernard Richter, Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Nicolas Testé (for once, sans sa femme).
Fueled by a fierce intelligence, deep earnestness, exceptional eloquence, and social media savvy, Joyce DiDonato is a presence and a power, as much when speaking and thinking as when singing. Who better to imagine a program that would suit this (we hope) unique moment?
Pretty is its own reward.
Each year, when I take in a performance of Messiah by the Philadelphia Orchestra as part of my own holiday tradition, I hope it will spark some new and exciting feeling inside of me, or offer a new way of looking at the musical drama as a whole.
Kudos to Opera Philadelphia for programming Handel’s Semele in its exceptionally interesting and wide-ranging Festival 2019; unfortunately, despite an extraordinary cast, James Darrah’s drably dull production doomed it.
Here’s a quick sprint through some recent (and a few maybe not-so-very-recent) Handel CDs that have been stacking up.
When Arthur Sullivan (not yet Sir Arthur) composed his “dramatic oratorio” The Martyr of Antioch in 1880, he had just completed The Pirates of Penzance.
“Trove Maundy Thursday” offers a recent un-HIP version of Handel’s Messiah.
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
I was, to my astonishment, quite bored.
William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants made a much-anticipated appearance at Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival Saturday performing Theodora.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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