MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Music & the Arts

July 8, 2019 • 10:29 am 0

Review of San Francisco Opera Season Closers

Orlando-Sasha Cooke as Orlando and Christian Van Horn as Zoroastro in Handel's Orlando.

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 Orlando here.

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.

continue

Filed under: directors, Georges Bizet, Handel, Musical America, review, San Francisco Opera

November 15, 2018 • 4:38 am Comments Off on Byron Schenkman & Friends Explore Handel’s Italian Cantatas

Byron Schenkman & Friends Explore Handel’s Italian Cantatas

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.

Filed under: Byron Schenkman, Handel, Juilliard

May 7, 2018 • 6:33 pm Comments Off on Vivo in Te

Vivo in Te

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.

Filed under: Baroque opera, Dmitry Sinkovsky, Handel, Julia Lezhneva, Vivaldi

April 24, 2018 • 12:40 pm Comments Off on Handel in Omaha

Handel in Omaha

One of the many remarkable moments from this past weekend at Opera Omaha’s ONE Festival.

Filed under: Handel, Opea Omaha

March 1, 2018 • 1:14 am 1

Serse

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’.

 More background info here.

Complete Italian libretto here.

 

Filed under: Handel, Stefan Herheim

February 10, 2018 • 12:17 pm Comments Off on Handel in Los Angeles

Handel in Los Angeles

lamc
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.

Here’s my essay for the program:

SLAVERY, PLAGUES, AND RESTORATION

“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.”

continue reading

Filed under: Handel, Los Angeles Master Chorale

August 3, 2017 • 10:02 am Comments Off on Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: Alcina Casts Surprising Spells in Santa Fe

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered: Alcina Casts Surprising Spells in Santa Fe

64947-alcina-else-van-den-heever-c-ken-howard-for-santa-fe-opera-2017-resized

Elsa van den Heever (Alcina) © Ken Howard for Santa Fe Opera, 2017

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.

continue

Filed under: directors, Handel, review, Santa Fe Opera

February 16, 2017 • 11:05 am Comments Off on The Devil Gets the Best Tunes

The Devil Gets the Best Tunes

1702_cummings_no22_c_robert_workman

Laurence Cummings (Photo by Robert Workman)

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.

continue reading

Filed under: Handel, Juilliard

April 12, 2016 • 4:39 pm Comments Off on Mr Handel

Mr Handel

gfhandelKeeping watch in his Brook St bedroom.

Filed under: Handel, photography

April 12, 2016 • 12:42 am Comments Off on Alexander’s Feast: A Handelian Ode to the Power of Music

Alexander’s Feast: A Handelian Ode to the Power of Music

2016-04-16-alexanders-feastMy essay on Handel’s magnificent ode Alexander’s Feast has been posted on the LA Master Chorale Site:

It sounds strange to refer to George Frideric Handel as a neglected composer. Messiah is such a fixture that the holiday season would feel bereft   were it suddenly to disappear from the scene. (Never mind that its association with Christmas postdates the practice during the composer’s lifetime.)

continue reading

Filed under: choral music, Handel, Los Angeles Master Chorale

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

RSS Arts & Culture Stories from NPR

Follow me on Twitter @memeteria