Tag: Emilie Renard

Il Duello Amoroso: Louise Alder and Emilie Renard

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Louise Alder

(David Bates and La Nuova Musica at St George’s Hanover Square, 20 April 2017)

Thanks to work travel, I haven’t been able to see all that much of the London Handel Festival this year, but I’d been looking forward to this event: a programme of duets performed by two of our most talented young singers, Louise Alder and Emilie Renard. These duets were chamber pieces written by Handel during his early period in Italy and the most famous of them was the cantata Amarilli vezzosa, composed in 1708. It was a rare chance to hear these early works: I only wish La Nuova Musica’s music director, David Bates, had kept a more sympathetic balance between orchestra and singers.

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L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1643): Claudio Monteverdi

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Poppea: Vienna

★★★★

(Theater an der Wien, Vienna, 19 October 2015)

Before seeing Poppea, I’d been warned it was ‘hardcore Regietheater’, a phrase which would normally provoke serious qualms. But even I know better than to go to a Claus Guth production expecting togas and sandals. Despite my conservative tastes I can appreciate regie if it’s done well. It depends whether the director’s taken time to think about the story, or whether he’s simply thrown in sharks, parrots or a live bull for the sake of it. Guth certainly fell into the first category. His production isn’t traditional, but it’s based on an intelligent reading of the story. It toys with the audience’s expectations and makes you think afresh about the dynamics between the characters. This Poppea is good regie: deceptively playful, with a heart of darkness.

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Catone in Utica (1732): George Frideric Handel

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Handel: Catone in Utica

★★★★

(Opera Settecento at St George’s, Hanover Square, 17 March 2015)

We’re all going to be hearing rather a lot about Catone in Utica this year, so let’s get things off to a roaring start with a performance I saw last night at St George’s, Hanover Square, formerly Handel’s parish church, as part of the London Handel Festival. Although the opera was put together by Handel for his 1732 season, it’s stretching the truth a bit to say that it’s by him. Handel had to fill out his programmes somehow and so, at this stage of his career, he often produced one or two pasticcio operas each season alongside his own works. These pasticci were assembled from arias by several other composers and tailored by Handel to meet the taste of his demanding British public.

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