Get Access To Every Broadway Story Unlock access to every one of the hundreds of articles published daily on BroadwayWorld by logging in with one click. Timothy Nelson, a gradute of Peabody ...

This 1738 opera shows the composer at his most mischievous – and this performance at St Martin-in-the-Fields was splendidly done With its airy spaces and lively acoustic, James Gibbs’s 1720s church at ...

Monumentalised by the Victorians as Handel’s Largo, Ombra mai fu is the opening number in his opera Serse, and for all its ironic touches — the object of Xerxes’ veneration is a plane tree — has to be ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. In 1738, the statue of Handel as Orpheus, now in the V&A, was unveiled at Vauxhall’s Spring Gardens in London.

Xerxes, or Serse, to give it the Italian title, may have been a flop at its conception, but its enduring Largo aria has touched many hearts since it was first performed in 1738. Unexpectedly, Handel's ...

Handel's main roles were divided between five women’s voices of outstanding quality, delivering the sort of performances where singing seems as natural as breathing (no mean feat in a very stylised ...

Always there is the claim that opera directors need to “breathe new life” into classic works through updatings and reinterpretations. But as the last 50 years of such events have shown, the life ...

Let’s talk about adapting opera. I have no problem with a director deciding to abridge a Shakespeare play for performance, or even to modernize its language. I also have no problem when cuts are made ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. You only need listen to the first three tracks, including “Ombra mai fu”, the aria popularised by Kathleen Ferrier, ...

Serse: a rising star shines in this subversive slice of Handel This 1738 opera shows the composer at his most mischievous – and this performance at St Martin-in-the-Fields was splendidly done 4/5 ...