Handel
Vivid, noble and bouyant: AAM’s Messiah reviewed
More than a thousand musicians took part when Handel’s Messiah was performed in Westminster Abbey in May 1791. It wasn’t…
An ensemble achievement that dances and sparkles: Glyndebourne’s Giulio Cesare reviewed
A classic opera production ages like wine. When David McVicar’s staging of Handel’s Giulio Cesare first opened at Glyndebourne in…
You could have built a tent city from all the red chinos: Aci by the River reviewed
The Thames cruise for which Handel composed his Water Music in 1717 famously went on until around 4 a.m. The…
How the Georgians invented nightlife
Dan Hitchens on the Georgian obsession with lavish light shows and nocturnal adventures
Florid flummery: ETO’s Il viaggio a Reims reviewed
Lightning sometimes strikes twice. English Touring Opera hit topical gold last spring when, wholly by coincidence, they found themselves touring…
The coronation music was – mostly – a triumph
Sir Hubert Parry was upgraded from knight bachelor to baronet by King Edward VII in 1902, and my goodness he…
Turns Handel into a Netflix thriller: Royal Opera's Theodora reviewed
The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s…
You'll shrug where you should marvel: Garsington's Amadigi reviewed
When you think of Handel’s Amadigi (in so far as anyone thinks about the composer’s rarely staged, also-ran London score…
Community music-making is the jewel in the British crown
Community music-making is the unifying jewel in the British crown, says James MacMillan
The grotesque unevenness of Mozart’s Requiem
It is amazing what fine performances you can get beamed to your computer these days. Slightly less amazing is the…
A new opera that deserves more than one outing: Royal Opera's New Dark Age reviewed
It’s quite a title sequence. Puccini swells on the soundtrack and words flash before your eyes. ‘Ecstatic!’ ‘Spellbound!’ ‘Passionate!’ ‘Dazzled!’…
The original Edinburgh Festival
James Sadler’s 1815 balloon flight, a Fringe first, heralded the greatest musical extravaganza that Scotland had ever seen, says John D. Halliday
Bigamists, lunatics and adventurers: the raucous world of 19th century British music
The world of 19th-century British music was raucous, but are there any masterpieces waiting to be rediscovered? wonders Richard Bratby
Meet the unrivalled Sun King of early music, William Christie
It’s morning in the garden of William Christie, and he’s talking about home improvements. ‘I planted three pines up there…
Joyce DiDonato seduces you within the first 10 minutes: Royal Opera’s Agrippina reviewed
‘Laws bow down before the desire to rule…’ Centuries before ‘proroguing’ had entered British breakfast-table vocabulary there was Handel’s Agrippina,…
The Holy Grail of concert-going: I Fagiolini deliver serious musicianship that never takes itself too seriously
We’ve all read the article. It does the rounds with the dispiriting regularity of an unwanted dish on a sushi…
Desperate mothers, abandoned babies: the tragic story of London’s foundlings
One of the oddest of Bloomsbury’s event venues must be the Foundling Museum. The handsome building on Coram’s Fields houses…
ENO’s Jack the Ripper needs to decide if it wants to be a gore-fest or social history
Is it possible to write a feminist opera about Jack the Ripper? Composer Iain Bell thinks it is, and his…
In praise of the English Touring Opera — a minor miracle of the arts world
Wolverhampton; Workington; Blackburn; Sheffield; Lancaster; Hackney. Every year English Touring Opera does what our national opera company doesn’t: packs up…
Often baffling but ultimately entertaining: Britten’s Paul Bunyan reviewed
‘I feel I have learned lots about what not to write for the theatre…’ There’s a prevailing idea that the…
A fun evening that finished early enough for dinner – neither a given in Handel
On a sward of AstroTurf somewhere off Silicon Roundabout, Mountain Media is hosting its summer party and, well, it’s the…
A delicious operatic ragout of horror: Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk reviewed
There is famously no door into the late-night diner of Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’. Its three silent patrons are trapped behind…
ENO’s La traviata was so comprehensive a flop that it is painful to go into detail
Handel’s Rinaldo has not been highly regarded even by his most ardent admirers. I have never understood why — even…
Excellent but there’s too much larking about: ENO’s Rodelinda reviewed
ENO has revived Richard Jones’s production of Handel’s Rodelinda. It was warmly greeted on its first outing in 2014, though…
