Tag: recitals

Arias by Gluck: Sonia Prina

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Sonia Prina

(with La Barocca, directed by Ruben Jais, Wigmore Hall, 28 June 2016)

Sonia Prina is one of the most colourful personalities in the world of Baroque music (which is saying something), and although I’d seen her on DVD as the warrior queen Partenope and the scheming vizier Artabano, I hadn’t heard her in the flesh until Tuesday at the Wigmore. Here she treated us to a programme of sparkling, mostly pre-reform Gluck. Performed with panache and a glorious disdain for convention, it was quite an experience.

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Franco Fagioli: Arias for Caffarelli

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(Wigmore Hall, with Il Pomo d’Oro directed by Riccardo Minasi, 13 November 2015)

It’s just over a year since Franco Fagioli made his solo London debut at the Wigmore, a night which was memorable for several reasons. It was my first Baroque concert, and it also introduced me to a wonderful circle of friends with whom I’ve since travelled to operas and concerts across Europe. When we were in Halle in June we heard a very similar programme to that offered in Fagioli’s second London recital at the Wigmore last Friday, but his great strength as an artist is that he never sings an aria the same way twice. For me, the London concert was more adventurous and more emotionally engaged than the recital in Halle; and, in any case, there were two mouthwatering new additions to the programme: Se bramate d’amar and Crude furie. Franco Fagioli doing Serse? Now this promised to be seriously good fun.

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Raging Roland: Cathy Bell

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RagingRoland

(Handel House, 8 October 2015)

 Having been delighted by Cathy Bell‘s Venti turbini the other week, I’d really been looking forward to this recital at Handel House focused on Ludovico Ariosto’s Renaissance epic. The programme was split equally between Handel (Orlando and Alcina) and Vivaldi (Orlando furioso), and Bell was accompanied by two other members of last year’s Handel House Talent group: Marie van Rhijn on harpsichord, and Caoimhe de Paor joining them on recorder for a formidably complicated piece of Vivaldi, on which more later. Fittingly, given its source, it was a recital that offered rage and romance in equal measure. Continue reading →

Handel House Talent Scheme 2015-16

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I was flattered and quite frankly rather astonished when Handel House invited me to join them for their 2015-16 Talent Scheme launch event on 21 September (to watch, not to participate, obviously). Every year they take on half a dozen scarily talented young musicians who specialise in Baroque music and provide them with a space to develop their skills with masterclasses, performance opportunities and other guidance.

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Erica Eloff: The Trials and Triumphs of Love

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Erica Eloff

(with Ars Eloquentiae at Handel House, 2 July 2015)

The beginning of July was almost unbearably hot by London standards; and so, on walking into Handel House’s recital room, I was delighted to find a novel solution to the problem. Every chair was graced with its own neat red folded fan. The team should be congratulated: few London venues would be so thoughtful nor so imaginative (I should note that we did have to give them back at the end: a shame, as they were more efficacious than my own).

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Franco Fagioli: Arias for Caffarelli

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Franco Fagioli

(Konzerthalle Ulrichskirche, Halle, with Il Pomo d’Oro, 7 June 2015)

So, we’d started off the weekend with (arguably) the most famous countertenor in the world and we closed it in dazzling fashion with the most formidably talented: the crown prince of coloratura. In the high-vaulted surroundings of the Ulrichskirche, Halle’s church-turned-concert hall, Franco Fagioli was on fine form as he returned to the programme of his 2013 Caffarelli album. It proved to be a delightful complement to the Porpora recital we saw at the Wigmore back in September and, with orchestral support from the ever-vivacious Il Pomo d’Oro, directed by Riccardo Minasi, it made for a deliciously exuberant evening.

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Philippe Jaroussky: Festival Concert

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Philippe Jaroussky

(Georg-Friedrich-Händel Halle, with Orfeo 55 and Nathalie Stutzmann, 4 June 2015)

In early June, all Baroque roads lead to Halle in Saxony-Anhalt, which holds an annual Handel festival in honour of its most famous son. As a Londoner by adoption, I confess to a slight sense of possessiveness over Handel, who moved away from Halle at the age of eighteen (as opposed to the 47 years he spent living and working in London), but I suppose we can share him. And it is true that Halle’s festival feels considerably sleeker and higher-profile than London’s equivalent earlier this year: there are posters and banners everywhere; every performance was packed with people; and the programme featured a positive galaxy of international Baroque talent.

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Randall Scotting: A Year in the Life of Handel: 1738

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Randall Scotting

A recital by Randall Scotting and Marie van Rhijn

(Handel House Museum, 22 March 2015)

Back in October, on visiting Handel House for the first time, I wrote about their exhibition, A Year in the Life of Handel. This focused on the works produced by Handel in 1738 and the challenges he faced at the time. Not least of these was the growing indifference of the English public to Italian opera seria: audiences were thinning out and there was barely enough interest to sustain one Italian opera company, let alone Handel’s team at Covent Garden and the rival Opera of the Nobility. As if that wasn’t enough, Italian opera was also being satirised in English-language burlesques, most famously The Dragon of Wantley.

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Max Emanuel Cencic: Venezia

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Venezia: Max Cencic

(Wigmore Hall, with Il Pomo d’Oro and Riccardo Minasi, 12 December 2014)

First I must apologise for the recent hiatus in my posting. For the last few weeks life has been little more than an extraordinary barrage of events that finally came to a head this week in surreal but glorious fashion. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now it’s all over and I can slowly get back into my normal rhythm again. There are lots of things that have been going on which I’d love to share with you in due course. And I’m going to kick off with the most recent and the most exhilarating.

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