Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | London Handel Orchestra

A glorious Esther from Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Singers and Orchestra, with a classy line-up of soloists led by Nardus Williams and Tim Mead.

On Easter Monday, this year's London Handel Festival came to a close with Handel's youthful oratorio La Resurrezione in the suitably Baroque setting of London's St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Handel’s Messiah is not too re-imagined, thankfully, with an almost Crystal Palace sized choir although not all singing at once!

The evening’s most unbuttoned applause was reserved for two native anglophone artists, countertenor Patrick Terry and bass-baritone Michael Mofidian.

Visual eye candy, excellent singing and superb Handelian playing by Laurence Cummings and the London Handel Orchestra are marred by poor diction and limited acting expressivity.

An impressive display of singing technique isn't enough to make RCM's Ariodante connect with hearts and minds.

A reconstruction of a long-lost opera by Handel gives some exciting young singers the chance to shine at the London Handel Festival, even if the plot might be better back in the mists of obscurity. 

Is Handel’s Semele an oratorio or an opera? Of course Handel himself called it an oratorio but some suggest it is the English-language opera that he never wrote. 

As a highlight of this year's London Handel Festival, the composer's rarely heard oratorio Deborah was given a strong and committed performance by Laurence Cummings and a fine cast.

Despite a disappointingly static production, the cast shine in the Royal College of Music's producion of Handel's rarity Arianna in Creta.

The culmination of the London Handel Festival is a much anticipated event, and tonight’s performance of Handel’s radiant composition L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato was no exception. With an array of eminent musicians performing to a packed St George’s, Hanover Square, the mood was celebratory and the performance had a glow and energy that suited Handel’s mercurial music.

Imeneo (1740), Handel’s penultimate opera, is atypical on several fronts. It’s relatively short by Handel’s standards (three acts, under two hours of music); the plot is thin, but not as absurd or complicated as those of some of his other operas (there are no disguises, for example); the title role is composed for a bass; and the opera has a chorus which participates in the plot, rather than just

Probably no other work in the repertoire has such mystical status as Bach's Matthew Passion. Phrases like "The Greatest Work in the Western Canon", trip glibly off the tongue while failing to illuminate its greatness or acknowledge its strangeness. It is the sacred cow of sacred cows.

Riccardo Primo, Re d’Inghilterra (or in English, Richard I), is Handel’s only opera based on the story of an English monarch, and it was premiered in the coronation year of King George II in 1727 (although in fact it was composed the year before but postponed).

A true highlight of this year's London Handel Festival was a performance of the dramatic oratorio Saul, featuring a large cast of young soloists, including several previous finalists of the Festival's annual singing competition, all now getting well established in their solo careers.

This week, the annual London Handel Festival, now in its 34th year, opened with a new production of his opera Rodelinda.