Handel
Messiah, Polyphony, OAE, Layton, St John's Smith SquareMonday, 24 December 2012
Messiahs of all kinds multiply at this time of year: the meek and the threadbare as well as the proud and polished. On the Sunday before Christmas, it was hard to choose between two potential archangels who could hardly fail given their respective... Read more... |
Belshazzar, Les Arts Florissants, Barbican HallFriday, 14 December 2012
If you’ve ever wondered what a bad day at the office looked like for Handel then look no further than Belshazzar – an oratorio that positively demands heavenly intervention and possibly a bit of smiting. With a first act that worried even the... Read more... |
The Brook Street Band, de Bernières, Kennedy, Wigmore HallSaturday, 08 December 2012
What if Handel, after his death, descended to an eminently civilised afterlife, where he spent his time making music and new friends with the likes of Beethoven and even Jimi Hendrix? That’s the premise of Louis de Bernières’ new play Mr Handel, a... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Knussen, Weber, Alison BalsomSaturday, 01 December 2012
Oliver Knussen: Violin Concerto etc Various artists/Oliver Knussen (NMC)Collecting music written between the early 1970s and 2010, this NMC disc is an enthralling tribute to one of the greatest of contemporary composers. Oliver Knussen has... Read more... |
Jephtha, Welsh National OperaSunday, 23 September 2012
Reviewing the Buxton Festival production of Handel’s Jephtha on theartsdesk a couple of months ago, Philip Radcliffe complained that the director, Frederic Wake-Walker, had done too little to justify the staging of this, the composer’s last oratorio... Read more... |
Susanna, Iford ManorSunday, 29 July 2012
Not all geese are swans, and not all Handel oratorios are like Messiah – storyless, spiritual, monumental sequences of reflective arias and choruses. By definition, though, they aren’t operas either, and it’s always a calculated risk to put them on... Read more... |
Jephtha, Buxton FestivalMonday, 09 July 2012
Handel, a national hero at the time, went blind writing Jephtha, his last great oratorio, and sadly thence into terminal decline. Now, 260 years after its first performance at Covent Garden, we have a new production by Frederic Wake-Walker, who is... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Göttingen: Handel Festival 2012Sunday, 27 May 2012
Other towns may choose national heroes as their emblems – posing generals, politicians or sword-wielding officers on horseback, glaring sternly down from their plinths – but not Göttingen. It is entirely in keeping with the unassuming, unobtrusive... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Massenet, David Russell, WeinbergSaturday, 26 May 2012
Massenet: Werther Rolando Villazón, Sophie Koch, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Antonio Pappano (DG)Massenet’s Goethe adaptation needs a lot of love to make it convince as a drama. Fortunately this live Covent Garden performance, taped... Read more... |
ENO's new 2012/13 season in fullTuesday, 24 April 2012The ENO's 2012/13 season includes premieres from Philip Glass (The Perfect American) and Michel van der Aa (Sunken Garden) and nine new productions from some of today's most iconoclastic stage directors. The Verdi bicentenary begins in the UK... Read more... |
Riccardo Primo, Britten Theatre, Royal College of MusicWednesday, 28 March 2012
No greater proof of the potency of the current Handel revival can be found than the London Handel Festival, now in its 35th year. The festival continues to fill concert halls and churches across London every Spring with the composer’s chamber... Read more... |
Classical CDs Weekly: Handel, Lutosławski, ShostakovichSaturday, 25 February 2012
Handel: The Eight Great Suites Lisa Smirnova (ECM)This set slipped out quietly at the end of 2011. The typically muted ECM cover gives no hint of how life-enhancing these two discs are; I felt like getting the fluorescent highlighters out and... Read more... |
