Handel
Solomon, OAE, Butt, QEH review - daft Biblical whitewashing with great chorusesMonday, 13 October 2025
Forty years ago, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was born, and I heard Handel’s Solomon in concert for the first time. Charles Mackerras’s sprightly performance convinced me it was a masterpiece. Now I’m not so sure, despite the presence... Read more... |
Giustino, Linbury Theatre review - a stylish account of a slight operaWednesday, 08 October 2025
It’s a good year to be Handel-lover. No sooner have summer runs of Rodelinda (Garsington) and Saul (Glyndebourne) finished than we’re into autumn and Opera North’s Susanna, Giustino at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre, with Ariodante still to come... Read more... |
Susanna, Opera North review - hybrid staging of a Handel oratorioMonday, 06 October 2025
Turning Handel oratorio into opera can be a rewarding enterprise. Charles Edwards’ presentation of Joshua, over 15 years ago, for instance, was very effective for Opera North in using projection as well as costume design to make a parallel of the... Read more... |
Ariodante, Opéra Garnier, Paris review - a blast of Baroque beautySaturday, 04 October 2025
The revival of Robert Carsen’s production of Handel’s Ariodante at the Opéra Garnier in Paris under the direction of Raphaël Pichon, with his Ensemble Pygmalion and a top-notch cast, is well worth a trip to Paris. At over four hours, it might seem... Read more... |
Classical CDs: Voice flutes, flugelhorns and frothSaturday, 04 October 2025
Corelli/Handel: Sonatas Michaela Koudelková (recorders), Monika Knoblochová (harpsichord), Libor Mašek (cello), Jan Krejča (theorbo) (Supraphon)This disc’s bright, piquant flavour makes it an irresistible acquisition. I dived... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Alexander’s Feast, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan review - rapturous Handel fills the spaceMonday, 01 September 2025
Many Londoners would already have experienced the musicality incarnate of Peter Whelan and his Irish Baroque Orchestra. A smaller ensemble rocked two of Irish National Opera’s Vivaldi specials in the Linbury Theatre – one a major award winner – and... Read more... |
Dunedin Consort, Butt / D’Angelo, Muñoz, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tedious Handel, directionless song recitalSaturday, 23 August 2025
Handel probably wrote his cantata Clori, Tirsi e Fileno in 1707 while he was in the service of the Marquis of Ruspoli in Rome. It tells the story of the shepherdess, Clori, who has two lovers that she plays off against one another to no great effect... Read more... |
Semele, Royal Opera review - unholy smokeTuesday, 01 July 2025
Poor, slightly silly Semele fries at the sight of lover Jupiter casting off his mortal form, but in Congreve’s and Handel’s supposedly happy ending, everyone else rejoices that Bacchus is the offspring of this dalliance. Or do they? Not in the new... Read more... |
Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing descent into darknessTuesday, 10 June 2025
This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in pictures ranging from grotesque exuberance to monochromatic expressionism. From the earliest flamboyant images, dominated by the... Read more... |
Giulio Cesare, The English Concert, Bicket, Barbican review - 10s across the board in perfect HandelMonday, 12 May 2025
Is Giulio Cesare in Egitto, to give the full title, Handel’s best and shapeliest opera? Glyndebourne’s revival of the legendary David McVicar production last year made it seem so, not least thanks to the presence of two of last night’s soloists,... Read more... |
Tales of Apollo and Hercules, London Handel Festival review - compelling elements, but a failed experimentMonday, 31 March 2025
Over the last three years of the London Handel Festival, two experimental productions have proved to be highlights – not just of the festival itself – but of the musical year. In 2023, Adele Thomas’s In The Realms of Sorrow brought sweat,... Read more... |
Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, St George’s Hanover Square review - Handel’s journey of a soulThursday, 20 March 2025
Imagine if Bach had set Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili’s allegory of Beauty breaking free from Pleasure with the guidance of Time and Enlightenment: he’d probably have hit the spiritual highs. The 21-year-old Handel, at least as this multifaceted... Read more... |
- 1 of 17
- ››
