Hello Gentlemen,
It's Asian Nicole. I have admired George Handel for a long time. Finally I got the chance to see one of his famous opera--Ariodante at the Four Seasons Centre with my darling opera professor. This opera starts from Oct. 16 to Nov. 4, 2016, which is one of Handel’s most radiantly beautiful scores echoes myriad emotions in this story of love, honour, and deception. Alice Coote and Jane Archibald—two COC favourites—return to head a dream Baroque cast, under the baton of Music Director Johannes Debus.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks and Messiah remaining steadfastly popular. One of his four Coronation Anthems, Zadok the Priest (1727), composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing.
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts with music by George Frideric Handel. The libretto was based on parts of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Handel put some ballet music in the opera for the famous dancer Marie Sallé. The opera was first performed in the Covent Garden Theatre, London, on 8 January 1735. Ariodante opened Handel's first season at Covent Garden and successfully competed against the rival Opera of the Nobility. It was performed 11 times during its premiere season. After that, Ariodante wasn’t performed again until 1926, in Stuttgart, Germany.
Perhaps because Handel’s operas are so completely of the past in Western musical culture, they have lent themselves easily to modernization. The Canadian Opera Company brings Handel’s Ariodante to 1960s Scotland. Director Jones has taken a story set in ancient Scotland – of jealousy, manipulation of belief, and tragedy – and transferred it to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides of the 1960s, with its isolation, suffocating community, overheated and powerful emotions. Can the gentility of 18th-century Handel survive the transition to the anxieties of the 20th and 21st centuries?
COC music director Johannes Debus, conducting his first Handel opera, agrees wholeheartedly. “Handel was this great melodist,” he says, “He has this ability in just one melody – in just one melodic cell, even –to depict the mood and the character of a person or a situation. He also uses rhythm in this unique way – to demonstrate character. Baroque music is so full of disguised and not-so-disguised dances.”
"… a major triumph. The decisions Jones has made to update and deepen the resonances of the opera work beautifully both to preserve the integrity of the original and add to it touches and textures that only a modern audience can appreciate.”
“If you needed one example to demonstrate why modern staging and perfectly realized music from the past need each other, this was it.” — Globe and Mail
Thanks so much for the wonderful evening, my darling opera professor! I really enjoyed this opera...It was phenomenal.
It's Asian Nicole. I have admired George Handel for a long time. Finally I got the chance to see one of his famous opera--Ariodante at the Four Seasons Centre with my darling opera professor. This opera starts from Oct. 16 to Nov. 4, 2016, which is one of Handel’s most radiantly beautiful scores echoes myriad emotions in this story of love, honour, and deception. Alice Coote and Jane Archibald—two COC favourites—return to head a dream Baroque cast, under the baton of Music Director Johannes Debus.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was a German, later British baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.
Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks and Messiah remaining steadfastly popular. One of his four Coronation Anthems, Zadok the Priest (1727), composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing.
Ariodante is an opera seria in three acts with music by George Frideric Handel. The libretto was based on parts of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Handel put some ballet music in the opera for the famous dancer Marie Sallé. The opera was first performed in the Covent Garden Theatre, London, on 8 January 1735. Ariodante opened Handel's first season at Covent Garden and successfully competed against the rival Opera of the Nobility. It was performed 11 times during its premiere season. After that, Ariodante wasn’t performed again until 1926, in Stuttgart, Germany.
Perhaps because Handel’s operas are so completely of the past in Western musical culture, they have lent themselves easily to modernization. The Canadian Opera Company brings Handel’s Ariodante to 1960s Scotland. Director Jones has taken a story set in ancient Scotland – of jealousy, manipulation of belief, and tragedy – and transferred it to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides of the 1960s, with its isolation, suffocating community, overheated and powerful emotions. Can the gentility of 18th-century Handel survive the transition to the anxieties of the 20th and 21st centuries?
COC music director Johannes Debus, conducting his first Handel opera, agrees wholeheartedly. “Handel was this great melodist,” he says, “He has this ability in just one melody – in just one melodic cell, even –to depict the mood and the character of a person or a situation. He also uses rhythm in this unique way – to demonstrate character. Baroque music is so full of disguised and not-so-disguised dances.”
"… a major triumph. The decisions Jones has made to update and deepen the resonances of the opera work beautifully both to preserve the integrity of the original and add to it touches and textures that only a modern audience can appreciate.”
“If you needed one example to demonstrate why modern staging and perfectly realized music from the past need each other, this was it.” — Globe and Mail
Thanks so much for the wonderful evening, my darling opera professor! I really enjoyed this opera...It was phenomenal.
Last edited:
