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4 days ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
Michael Spyres and Joyce DiDonato head a strong line up of soloists. Composed in 1751, George Frideric Handel’s Jephtha is based on the story from Judges XI and George Buchanan’s 1554 play Jephthes, sive Votum. It is recognised as his final oratorio, since The Triumph of Time and Truth of 1757 represented a revision of an earlier work, and as he wrote it he was increasingly troubled by his gradual loss of sight.
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2 weeks ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
The Royal Shakespeare Company production at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre. Mark Ravenhill’s play Ben and Imo tells the story of Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst over the nine months in which they worked together on the opera Gloriana, which was performed at Covent Garden in June 1953 to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
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3 weeks ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
A touch of the divine at Wigmore Hall on Spy Wednesday. Based on texts from the Old Testament’s ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ which bemoan the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC, Tenebrae settings are musical responses to the liturgy used at Passiontide. They were intended to be performed for the Offices of Matins on the final three days of Holy Week: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
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1 month ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
The Early Opera Company conducted by Christian Curnyn at St George’s, Hanover Square. George Frideric Handel’s Floridante, HWV 14, with an Italian language libretto by Paolo Antonio Rolli, premiered at London’s King’s Theatre on 9 December 1721. Rolli’s libretto is based on Francesco Silvani’s own for Marc’Antonio Ziani’s La costanza in trionfo of 1696, and the fictitious story is set in ancient Persia.
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1 month ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
Inspired by the Baroque, but Romantic to its core. Felix Mendelssohn’s first oratorio St Paul, Op. 36 may not be well known in the United Kingdom, but it enjoys regular outings in Germany and was extremely popular in its day. Premiering on 22 May 1836 in Düsseldorf, within a year it had seen performances across Europe and in America in both the original German and an English translation.
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1 month ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
A 19th century rarity receives an outing at Cadogan Hall. Édouard Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys, with a libretto by Édouard Blau, is based on the old Breton legend of the downfall of Ys, a mythical city on the coast of Brittany that was swallowed up by the sea. There are various versions of the story, and the opera works from some of these to present its own concerning how the city came to be threatened.
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1 month ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
A cantata and oratorio receive the operatic treatment at the London Handel Festival. George Frideric Handel wrote the cantata Apollo e Dafne, HWV 122 and the oratorio The Choice of Hercules, HWV 69 around40 years apart in 1709-10 and 1750 respectively. In this London Handel Festival event presented by La Nuova Musica, directed by David Bates, and New English Ballet Theatre, both are staged.
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1 month ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
The big questions of life explored at St George’s, Hanover Square. George Frideric Handel wrote his first oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, HWV 46a in Rome in 1707. The tale it presents may be allegorical, but the arguments the characters put forward make them feel complex and consequently real.
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2 months ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
Operas from the 17th to the 21st centuries in the heart of the Cotswolds. Situated in the most beautiful surroundings in the Cotswolds, Longborough Festival Opera is arguably the only summer festival to put Richard Wagner at the centre of its operations. Last year it presented three complete Cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen, alongside two further performances of Die Walküre, in productions directed by Amy Lane and conducted by Longborough’s Music Director Anthony Negus.
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2 months ago | 
musicomh.com | Sam Smith
OHP’s first production of a Wagner opera rubs shoulders with a wide variety of events. While people associate summer opera festivals with Glyndebourne, Garsington and the Granges, it is not necessary to travel outside London to experience one, thanks to Opera Holland Park. Only a ten minute walk from High Street Kensington station, it is somewhere to spend the evening rather than the entire day, but the beautiful setting still feels a long way from the hustle and bustle of a large metropolis.
