Sasha Cooke as Orlando and Christian Van Horn as Zoroastro in Handel’s “Orlando.” Photo (c) Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera
In addition to the wondrous Rusalka that was — by consensus, it seems — the highlight of the 2019 summer season — I wrote for Musical America about the company’s productions of Carmen and Orlandohere
Overall, I found the Carmen deeply disappointing on account of misguided direction — direction that also worked against the cast. Orlando, on the other hand, was engaging and beautifully produced. Despite some miscasting, it offered an insightful interpretation of one of Handel’s richest scores.
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Opera made a bold move when it last presented Carmen only three years ago, at the end of the David Gockley era. It marked the first-ever North American platform for the highly controversial Catalan director Calixto Bieito, and — in spite of some flaws (the revival was actually directed by a longtime Bieito associate) — offered genuinely fresh perspectives.
Sunday evening’s Byron Schenkman & Friends program looks delicious: focusing on two early cantatas by Handel (including Vedendo Amor from his sojourn in Rome), it also includes some of his instrumental music plus pieces by Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Caldara, and Anna Bon.
For some background, here’s my piece in this month’s Juilliard Journal on Handel in Rome (on p. 16).
Complete program:
George Frideric Handel:
Sonata in G Major, op. 1, no. 5, for flute and continuo
Domenico Scarlatti:
Four keyboard sonatas, K. 238, K. 239, K. 99, K. 100
George Frideric Handel:
Cantata “Vedendo Amor” for voice and continuo
Antonio Caldara:
Cantata “Soffri, mio caro Alcino” for voice and continuo
Anna Bon:
Sonata in F Major, op. 1, no. 2, for flute and continuo
George Frideric Handel:
Cantata “Mi palpita il cor” for voice, flute, and continuo
Performers:
Reginald Mobley
COUNTERTENOR
Joshua Romatowski
FLUTE
Nathan Whittaker
CELLO
Byron Schenkman
HARPSICHORD
Concert starts 7pm on Sunday 18 November at Benaroya’s Nordstrom Recital Hall.
Tickets here.
What a pleasure to get to hear Julia Lezhneva and partner in crime Dmitry Sinkovsky again, just a couple months after the Easter Festival in Lucerne. This time was the soprano’s Seattle debut. A heavenly evening of Vivaldi and Handel, with “Vivo in Te” as their encore.
In the mood to ignore this brutal Siberian cold spell and enjoy tonight’s Serse from 1738 (the Stefan Herheim production, conducted by Konrad Junghänel) at the Komische Oper.
Writes Richard Wigmore:
‘One of the worst that Handel ever set to music’, ran a contemporary verdict on the libretto of Serse, whose ‘mixture of tragic-comedy and buffoonery’ fazed London audiences in 1738. History, of course, has had its revenge. Today the very qualities that puzzled its original hearers – the lightly ironic, occasionally farcical tone, the fluid structure (many short ariosos, relatively few full-dress da capo arias) – have made Serse one of Handel’s most attractive operas for stage directors and audiences alike. There are episodes of high seriousness, above all in the magnificent sequence of Act 2 arias beginning with Serse’s aria di bravura ‘Se bramate’. But much of the invention has an airy melodiousness, whether in the dulcet minuet songs for the coquettish Atalanta, or Serse’s invocation to a plane tree, ‘Ombra mai fu’, immortalised and sentimentalised as ‘Handel’s Largo’.
Tomorrow night’s performance by the Los Angeles Master Chorale of Israel in Egypt by Handel is sold out. Not surprising, given the remarkable collaboration that is taking place.
The Master Chorale and Grant Gershon have teamed up with the Syrian-Armenian artist Kevork Mourad, who will provide his unique visual accompaniment to the music.
“I’m struck by how the Exodus story has spoken to so many different peoples over the last three millennia — especially today, with so many refugee crises and displaced peoples,” says Los Angeles Master Chorale’s Kiki and David Gindler Artistic Director, Grant Gershon. “To me, the heart of the Exodus story is this miraculous and unique restoration of a people to their homeland.”
My review of Santa Fe Opera’s Alcina for Bachtrack:
George Bernard Shaw crystallised longstanding biases when he declared that Handel’s operas were “only stage concerts for shewing off the technical skill of the singers”. David Alden, a longstanding maverick director and hero of Regie-philes, made his reputation in part through his striking interpretations of Handel. If anything, his production of Alcina, which he first staged at the Opéra National de Bordeaux in 2012 (with many of the same singers), pushes too far in the opposite direction to the theatrically static fossil of Shaw’s stereotype.
Here’s a piece I wrote for this month’s Juilliard Journal about Agrippina:
In one of Agrippina‘s pivotal scenes, the Emperor Claudius—at first presumed dead at sea by the scheming title character, only to be inconveniently rescued—crows in triumph over “conquered Britain” as a “new subject” for the Roman throne. That wouldn’t exactly be music to Brexit supporters—but, then, international migrants like George Frideric Handel (né Georg Friedrich Händel) would have had a harder time in a Europe of zealously policed borders.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson discusses his time on Modern Family and his new cookbook, Food Between Friends. Then, he plays a game about his home state of New Mexico.
Comics Samantha Ruddy and Luke Mones are hopelessly devoted to hearing Jonathan Coulton remix classic Grease songs to be about, you guessed it, Greece!
Nico Santos and Zeke Smithhave a carefree time guessing whether different items are Bath & Body Works scents, meal kits, or still life paintings until they are suddenly interrupted by a smoke alarm.
Nico Santos and Zeke Smith reveal what actors in hospital dramas are really saying behind their masks, then play a game about superhero power-ups. Go go gadget, PUBLIC RADIO SHOW!
Ophira Eisenberg and Jonathan Coulton discuss fighting and succumbing to the need for reading glasses. Not related, but has anyone seen my reading glasses? I swear I just had them.
Our occasional series on storytelling in video games returns with a look at The Last of Us Part II, which pulls a perspective switch on players that forces them to confront their role in the game.
A husband and wife photography team create avant-garde and futuristic shoots for their clients. The couple hopes the portraits transcend the typical images of beauty.
Experts have long wondered who wrote "Could only have been painted by a madman!" on the painting. Now, they think it was the artist, Edvard Munch. The message could have been aimed at critics.
A 22-year-old Kansas City artist, Kearra Johnson, transforms a school art project into a tribute to Black history – a standard playing card deck with face cards that portray African American icons.