Royal Handel

Description

London, February 1719, the birth of the Royal Academy of Music. Georg Friedrich Handel is appointed musical director. A German by origin, having spent four years in Italy, Handel wants to make London the new capital of opera. The only language that will be sung on the stage of the King's Theatre will be Italian, and two other composers are brought directly from the peninsula: Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Battista Bononcini. Both string instrumentalists, they bring a new instrumental breath. The enthusiasm is considerable: 34 operas and more than 460 performances will be given in nine years at the Royal Academy. Handel creates his masterpieces Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Ottone, and Radamisto there. Ariosti and Bononcini also achieve great success between 1720 and 1723, notably with Coriolano (Ariosti) and his sublime aria "Sagri numi." ROYAL HANDEL is a musical portrait of the first Royal Academy of Music. Eva Zaïcik and her accomplices from the Consort celebrate the prodigious variety of Handel's genius and introduce us to unpublished arias by Ariosti and Bononcini: "One is struck by the haunting 'Stille amare', the radiant fury of 'Agitato da fiere tempeste', the virtuosity of 'Gelosia, spietata Aletto', the swirling 'L'aure che spira', the contrapuntal asceticism of 'Ombra cara', and the poignant 'Deggio morire'."