Repertoire: The IDEAL Selection of Handel Operas 

Of your many stellar, highly informative, and entertaining videos, this for me is among your "Top Ten!" Thank you for the fabulous information about the best operas by my favorite composer and for guiding us to their superlative recordings.

There is a good recording of Rodelinda on Linn with Harry Bicket conducting the English Concert and Lucy Crowe in the title role that was recorded during the pandemic. Bicket and the English Concert were planning to tour with one new Handel opera per year but were unable to perform Rodelinda live so they just recorded it.

Thank you for this one, the da capo aria vid and the recitals one. I absolutely love this music, and you've opened my eyes to it even more.

Many thanks. I developed some allergic reaction after my former conductor let us sing one oratorio of Händel after the other. I confess I like the operas a little bit more. I hear always Mozart coming along. Aggripina is really great 😁😁😎

David Hurwitz, thank you so very much for this talk on Handel operas. I've been in love with them ever since I heard Marilyn Horne and Joan Sutherland perform them. There are some uploads here on RU-vid and thank goodness many of them are quite good. Thanks again, Dave...You are the best.

I’m devoting my morning to beginning to once more attempt to enter baroque opera on Dave’s fantastic presentation. As a boy of 13 I saw the great Beverly Sills perform Julius Caesar in Los Angeles when the NYCO would tour every year with about 5 operas and stay a week at the Music Center. This was the cultural highlight of the season and all my parents friends made it a point to attend and celebrate and I’m so glad I was able to be part of the history and be in the audience to hear great singing and see beautiful traditional productions.

I very much appreciated your brief comments about Handel's intentions and preferences about casting. I can stop devoting precious cortical space to that question!

Your viewers owe you a debt of gratitude for this project. My hope is that it will inspire many viewers who don't think they like Handel opera to give it a try. I have benefiitted from your presentation, too, even though I have been a Handel enthusiast since my youth. (Handel gets the largest shelf of CD's in my collection), I haven't heard all of the operas in your series of "12 greatest." My first exposure was via the old Decca recording of Alcina with Sutherland (still a favorite of mine, largely for the artistry of the singers). Latterly, I have enjoyed many period performances, including Hogwood's Rinaldo and Orlando, Gardiner's Tamerlano. Thanks again for this highly informative segment. And I really need to purchase your Handel book!

Thank you -- this was highly informative.

I started my Baroque exploring with Rameau, and then kind of slid into Handel and Lully. Great stuff, which I knew almost nothing about when I was younger. I've not heard Ottone, Radamisto or Partenope yet, but have seen the others. Partenope was the next on my list, but I will add the other two now. Thanks.

_"You can't die in a da capo aria"_ -- Very true, although Handel missed a golden opportunity to set a precedent in La Resurrezione :)

I once read that Handel operas was about “A loves B loves C loves D, who is dead / D’s long forgotten son/daughter”! Thanks for this, it is going to cost me a fortune. Regarding horrible Handel - google Caballe+cesare. “Da tempeste” is a total hoot!

Have ten of your chosen operas plus a few more, not to mention the superb oratorios! I have Winton Dean's books on Handel operas and have ordered your one as well. I have always loved Handel's music.

That was something of a Handelian tour de force! May, that it stirs the interest in the wonderful music of "Il caro Sassone" ('The dear saxon' as Handel sometimes affectionately was called in his youth in Italy). Allow me to contribute with first three personal highlights of Handel's operatic output: Orlando: William Christie's recording is one of the most atmospheric performances of a Handel opera, I've set my ears on. Some purists might find the voluptous sound of Les Arts Florissants too rich for their taste - not I. I love every note, every detail, down to the sound of the two violetta marina (a possible forerunner of the viola d'amore) in the sleep scene, just before the denouement in the third act. Patricia Bardon, a wonderful mezzo, is splendid and stylish in the title role, and very credible in portraying the confused, masculine character of the enchanted protagonist. And not a weak link in the rest of the cast: Rosa Mannion, Hilary Summers, Rosemary Joshua, Harry van der Kamp. Giulio Cesare: much as I enjoy the Minkowski recording, my favourite performance is the live performance of the piece on dvd (Harmonia Mundi) with Andreas Scholl at the height of his powers as a phenomenal Giulio from The Royal Theater in Copenhagen. A mainly local, but really excellent cast in the other parts of whom stand out Inger Dam-Jensen as Cleopatra, a flirtatous, soulfull minx, Randi Stene as a griefburdened Cornelia, and a very young Tuva Semmingsen as a reckless, but vulnerable Sesto. Concerto Copenhagen, the local, but really rather inter-Scandinavian baroque ensemble, is in the pit, led from the harpsichord by Lars Ulrik Mortensen, providing rich and stylish support. The staging by Francisco Negrin is capturing the work in its broad emotional range from the humorous to expressions of deepest pathos, be it sorrow, grief, anger, vengefulness or love. When the dvd came out, I was worried, that the performance wouldn't live up to my fond memories of the live experience. Luckily there was no need to worry! Theodora: the best opera Handel didn't write! The staged performance of the oratorio in Peter Sellars' setting at Glyndebourne on dvd. William Christie in the pit with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment and an incomparable roster on stage: Dawn Upshaw, David Daniels, Richard Croft, Frode Olsen, and to top it all: the sorely missed Lorraine Hunt. If the latters aria "As with rosy steps the morn advancing drives the shades of night ..." leaves you untouched or without goosebumps all over, you are either made of stone or dead! The final aria and duo (Daniels and Upshawn) put shame to the notion, that "you can't die in a dacapo aria" - with the highly poisonous "Streams of pleasure ever flowing ..." we are in the realm of not only an exit aria, but rather a very final exit! (Before anybody starts nitpicking: it's not strictly a dacapo aria, I know, but never the less....) At first I was slightly disturbed by the highly stylished gestures of the protagonists and the chorus in Sellars' staging, but with time, and when I bore in mind the sometimes incomprehensible behaviours of some christian, charismatic sects, I got used to it. In the end this feature, actually, added to the gripping, emotional experience of the performance. A friend of mine who is a music journalist watched the dvd of the performance together with a colleague, who for many years, actually a life time, was a music critic at one of the major Danish newspapers. These two seasoned hardnecks (and not both gay!), when they got to the final aria and duo, ended up so deeply moved, that they found themselves with tears streaming down their cheeks! Summing up: definately not another day at work - but a deeply moving experience, that I can only wholeheartedly recommend (you can sample snippets of the performance on RU-vid!). Lastly two recommendations for those who are just dipping their toes in Handelian waters - and for whom a whole work of 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 hours might seem unsurmountable: Janet Baker with Raymond Leppard and the ECO made a glorious recording on Philips of Handel's cantata 'Lucrezia' and a few operatic arias (also in the 5 cd set of her Decca and Philips recordings with a lot of other great music). If her very intense interpretations doesn't hook you on Handel for life, I guess nothing will. But beware, it's highly addictive! A nice, interesting and entertaining (why not, Handel was after all a man of the theatre - and very much of flesh and blood) introduction to Handel's operatic universe with contributions from a few distinguished Handelians can be found in the dvd "A Night with Handel. Great Handel arias set in contemporary London by night". The musical side is competently taken care of by Harry Bickett and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightment with good soloists, that count among others John Mark Ainsley, Rosa Mannion and Sarah Connolly. It's a great way to get acquainted with and understand the contemporaneous appeal of Handel's world too!

I think I'd pick Curtis before Hickox in Alcina (not least due to Joyce DiDonato), but hey, both are fabulous.

Dave, thank you, for emphasizing that whenever Handel did not have a castrato available, he substituted women in those parts. It's true that since the dull old days of Bowman & Co. we've seen a lot of adept falsettists, but none I've heard yet who could convincingly win a duel with a trumpet. Interestingly Rene Jacobs himself tends to use women in his Handel recordings whenever possible. I still enjoy earlier non-period performances like Sutherland's star-studded Alcina (but not the late and mediocre Rodelinda)or the Westminster recordings with Popp and Forrester of Serse and Rodelinda but your selections are first rate. P.S. I've tracked down every Handel opera there is in one recording or another and not a one has disappointed me. Some are better than otherd but every one has something glorious. For me the greatest single Handel opera recitl was Janet Baker's with Leppard on Philips. It was worth it for the joyous, virtuosic gusto of "Dopo notte" (Ariodante) all by itself.

Excellent and very helpful and informative! I was hoping Semele would make it into the survey. Do you have a favorite recording of that?

Hello David Hurwitz. Warm greetings from Brazil. Would you mind, if possible, sorting these 12 mentioned Handel operas from your personal top favorite towards to less favourite? Thank you!

Dave, two years ago Erato released a recording of Agrippina, with Joyce DiDonato in the title role. Your Mr. Levine loved it. Have you heard this recording, and how does it compare to the Rene Jacobs recording?

Please consider reviewing The English Concert’s CD release of Rodelinda. I don’t see a review of it here or at your website. The ensemble is touring it currently. Thank you for your consideration.

Yaaaas!

Actually one of my favourite Handel operas is his first opera and, coincidentally, his first work. "Almira", HWV 1, is a multi-lingual opera premiered in January 1705. Handel had travelled to the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1703 and played as a street violinist in the local marketplace. He'd also occasionally accompany the local orchestra on the harpsichord. Almira was first announced in 1704 as a "singspiel", although it didn't contain any spoken dialogue. It premiered on 8 January 1705, to great praise. The libretto was first published in Italian by Giulio Panchieri in 1691, who was living in Venice at the time. It was written for the composer Giuseppe Benevento's "L'Almira". Interestingly, most of the recitatives in Handel's Almira are in German (ergo they're known as "rezitatives"), as are a majority of the arias, although some of the arias are in Italian. This practice was common in German opera houses during the 18th century, with the German public wanting to be able to understand what was being said in conversations, but still keeping the traditional Italian-language arias, two enhance the dramatic/comedic effect of the operatic work. This truly magnificent opera was first performed (after its initial 20 performances in Hamburg) on 23 February 1985, for Handel's 300th Birthday Anniversary. Other performances would go on to attract the attention of the public, such as the successful performance at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2013. Two studio recordings have been made, both on the CPO label. The first in 1994, the the wonderful period instrument ensemble Fiori Musicali, with a cast of Ann Monoyios, Linda Gerrard, David Thomas, Patricia Rosario, Jamie MacDougall, Douglas Nasrawi, Olaf Haye and Christian Elsner. This was a fantastic interpretation, and the world's first studio recording. I definitely recommend listening to it.

The perfect-and necessary-follow-up video should be your recommendation for a Händel EXCERPTS compilation. As you noted, the operas are long. Many of us would appreciate a recommendation for recordings of Händel arias.

How does the new Rodelinda by Cummings hold up to your pick Curtis on Archiv?

The Ottone recording you seem to be waiting for was already made in 2016 for Decca under the direction of Geroge Petrou with a great cast: the eccentric but excellent Max Emanuel Cencic, Ann Hallenberg & Xavier Sabata. Sure it can be done even better but it's already superior to those of Nicholas McGegan and Robert King.

Never mind the frankly silly plots.The extraordinary quality of Handel's music is that it not only displays the virtuosity of the human voice, it also leads the listener through a series of convincingly rendered emotional states.

I know it eats into your time, but for me the longer the video the better.

Hello Dave I really hesitated to respond to this, as maybe I fall into your category of getting tired of the opera séria format. I have most of Handel’s operas kicking around here, including many of your suggestions, but I don’t find I listen to them that often. I went to hear/ see Rodelinda at the ENO a couple of years ago but didn’t much feel like staying after act 1. It’s a great opera for listening in segments at home but … I do think there’s a performance problem now with these and if I may say so the Handel opera thing is much more cult-y than anything to do with Bach. So, onwards and upwards, and as a result of your Gluck post the other day, I’m going to spend the weekend listening to the various reform composers after Handel and see what that does ( Gluck, obvs, but also Jomelli, Traetta, Paisello etc etc) to see how opera dug itself out of a certain “hole”. It’ll also help me understand early Mozart. These Ian Page recordings of the latter are really interesting. It’s not that I don’t like Handel, I just think some contemporary evaluations are excessive. Best

Hello Mr Hurwitz The longest video you have made is your reveiw of Ormandy's mono legacy. It lasts 1 hour 33 minutes. Best wishes Fred.

I hope I'm not too topical here, but given the current fad for, um, "gender-affirming" surgeries for children, a new age of castrati may soon be upon us.