Mainly Opera and Ballet
Handel, considered this his finest oratorio though it flopped with the public, but in Katie Mitchell’s new staging it was sublimely musical, and the performance compelling. Handel’s operas tend to be a sequence of recitatives and arias, but his oratorios have a far weightier role for the chorus, as in some modern operas — my review …
In Spring last year at the new Sam Wanamaker Theatre the Royal Opera put on Cavalli’s L’Ormindo, one of the earliest operas ever performed in a public opera house (the San Cassiano in Venice). This year they have reached further back to 1607, a time before public opera houses existed, performing Monteverdi’s Orfeo at Camden …
Pretending is what Finta is all about — the title itself means The Pretend Gardener — but too much pretence can make you can lose your way, which is exactly what happens here. The separated lovers, Sandrina (aka La Marchesa Violante Onesti) and Count Belfiore have to find themselves and one another before they can …
