Artículos de Vesna Gerintes

Handel's Tamerlano seduces the Versailles Opéra audience in a concert performance.

Le magicien René Jacobs a ressuscité Haendel à la Chapelle Royale de Versailles.

With the brilliant chamber choir Accentus and the recently formed period orchestra Insula behind her, Laurence Equilbey knows how to immediately captivate and move the modern listener.

Conductor Alan Curtis and musicologist Alessandro Ciccolini have successfully restored Vivaldi's opera Catone in Utica, and they brought it to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris with a star performance from mezzo Ann Hallenberg.

It was one of those extraordinary solo performance that left no-one in the audience indifferent. An unmissable event for all Baroque lovers in Paris: the Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli in town for a recital at the Salle Gaveau. The concert was part of a tour in support of his new CD Arias for Caffarelli.

William Christie named this Salle Pleyel concert “Music for Queen Caroline”, a moving tribute to Handel’s friend, protector and patron, Queen Caroline of Great Britain.

Let’s be clear: this was a performance of the highest order. From the first five notes of the overture, the sixteen-member orchestra Armonia Aténéa led by George Petrou ravished the audience of the Salle Pleyel with Handel’s full splendour.

Handel’s original version of Acis and Galatea was written in 1717–18 at Cannons, a stately home in Middlesex. Composed with light orchestration, it was not meant to be performed in an opera theatre, but rather in this private mansion.

Of the seventeen operas Handel wrote to star the Italian castrato Senesino, Giulio Cesare in Egitto is the most popular, and the one performed most often. It is a dramma per musica filled with ironic hints, and based on power and sex intrigues in ancient Rome. The 38-year-old Handel wrote it in England when his imported Italian-style operas started to fall out of favour.

One thing is for sure: whether you like Baroque opera or not, you will never be bored by an opera conducted by René Jacobs. By shaking up convention with his subtle readings, sometimes even rewriting the composer’s score, the Belgian conductor is the one of those rare few who always find an elegant way to bring the repetitive mannerisms of the Baroque to life.