Performer: The King's Consort

Carolyn Sampson returns joyfully to the Halle Handel Festival, accompanied by trumpeter Neil Brough and the King's Consort under Robert King.

Iestyn Davies and The King's Consort a real highlight at the Valletta International Baroque Festival. 

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.

All too often opera in concert is presented in its most basic format, without the theatricality and staging so characteristic to its execution. However, when a presentation comes along from the likes of The King’s Consort, you can be sure that justice will be served, even without the smoke and mirrors we’ve all grown to love.

The ‘semi-opera’ was an English musical and spoken theatre hybrid which by the end of the 17th century had begun to scrape the bottom of Restoration drama’s literary barrel, and by the 18th had been rendered obsolete by efforts to introduce the English to formal opera from the continent.

'Romantic' is a term normally applied to heart-on-sleeve 19th-century music, but this evening's concert had me convinced that the real music of love is baroque. The venue was well-chosen for this evening of musical oysters; Wilton's Music Hall is beautiful, intimate and yet grandiose.