Handel: Theodora
Saturday 8 February 2014 6.30pm, Hall
Geraint Lewis
The English Concert
Harry Bicket conductor
Rosemary Joshua Theodora
Sarah Connolly Irene
Tim Mead Didymus
Kurt Streit Septimius
Neal Davies Valens
Choir of Trinity Wall Street
There will be two intervals of 20 minutes each
following Act 1 and Act 2
Part of Barbican Presents 2013–14
Programme produced by Harriet Smith;
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George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Theodora, HWV68 (1750)
Handel once reportedly observed in connection
with Judas Maccabaeus that what the English
liked was something that ‘hit them on the drum
of the ear’. The ‘victory’ oratorios prompted by
Butcher Cumberland’s brutal crushing of the
1745 Jacobite rebellion – Judas, the Occasional
Oratorio and Joshua – had meshed perfectly
with the bellicose national mood. But the three
oratorios that followed, Solomon, Susanna
and Theodora – all far richer works – proved
much less popular. Even the vein of sumptuous
ceremonial in Solomon failed to rouse
enthusiasm. Susanna’s leanings towards ‘the light
operatic style’, as one of the composer’s friends
put it, cut right against audience expectations.
As for Theodora, Handel’s sole religious drama
set in Christian times and the only one not
drawn from the Bible, it was the biggest flop of
his oratorio career, surviving for a mere three
performances at Covent Garden in the 1750
Lenten season and revived just once, in 1755.
From the outset, though, there was a sharp
distinction between the reactions of the broader
public and those of Handel’s friends. On
22 March 1750 Thomas Harris, a cultivated
music-lover, wrote to his equally enlightened
brother James in Salisbury: ‘I was last night
at Theodora, which does not please the
generality of people, but I differ widely in my
opinion, for I think it has many excellent songs,
composed with great art and care, and such
as I am sure you will highly approve.’ One of
Handel’s closest friends, Mary Delany, wrote
to her sister Ann: ‘Don’t you remember our
snug enjoyment of Theodora?’ Ann in turn
responded: ‘Surely Theodora will have justice
at last, if it was to be again performed, but the
generality of the world have ears and hear not.’
2
Handel himself shared his friends’ special
regard for Theodora, as many anecdotes
confirm. According to the (admittedly biased)
memoirs of the librettist, the Reverend Thomas
Morell, the composer valued the oratorio
‘more than any Performance of the kind’,
placing the chorus ‘He saw the lovely youth’
far beyond the Hallelujah Chorus in Messiah.
And he wryly observed of Theodora’s failure at
the box-office: ‘The Jews will not come to it …
because it is a Christian story; and the Ladies
will not come because it [is] a virtuous one.’
There may be a grain of truth in Handel’s
reported witticism, at least as regards the
non-attendance of the Jews – hitherto a vital
component of his oratorio audiences. It may also
be that some of his wealthier patrons had left
London following a wave of minor earth tremors
in the early months of 1750. But the crucial reason
behind public indifference to Theodora was surely
its unique intimacy and reflective inwardness,
rising in its Second and Third Acts to spiritual
sublimity. Of all the oratorios, none was less
calculated to hit its listeners ‘on the drum of the
ear’. No work of Handel’s seems further removed
from the portly, periwigged figure of Victorian
imagination who, in Edward Fitzgerald’s words,
‘never reached beyond the region of the clouds’.
Thomas Morell’s immediate source for his libretto
was Robert Boyle’s novella The Martyrdom
of Theodora and of Didymus, whose mix of
prurience, mawkishness and sanctimonious
priggishness make it virtually unreadable today.
(Boyle’s prime claim to fame is as a physicist and
natural philosopher.) Though no poet himself,
Morell at least made a clear and coherent
narrative from Boyle’s sententious ramblings, in
the process fleshing out the characters of Irene
and Septimius. As a Church of England vicar
he was keen to emphasise the power of the
Holy Spirit to change lives: the Roman soldier
Didymus, in love with the Christian Theodora, has
secretly converted to her religion; and at the end
of the story, in a passage not set by Handel, the
Programme notes
a compassionate portrait of a soul struggling to
accept the imminence of death. Again, Handel’s
music, with its tenderly drawn-out chains of
sequences, adds resonances unsuspected
from a reading of the libretto. Acceptance and
resolution come with the aria ‘Oh that I on
wings could rise’; even here, though, the minor
mode (E minor) and the downward curve of
the main phrase lend an undertone of sadness
to Theodora’s new-found certainty, despite
the modest bouts of coloratura prompted by
Morell’s image of ‘sailing through the skies’.
Judged merely by the libretto, Theodora’s
piety and suffering have something almost
masochistic about them. But through the strength,
piercing beauty and profound, unsentimental
tenderness of Handel’s music she becomes an
intensely poignant, vulnerably human figure.
In the composer’s vision, far more than the
librettist’s, her martyrdom is both glorious and
suffused with a sense of agonised loss. Her arias
and two duets with Didymus, typically in slow
or moderate tempos and minor keys, give the
oratorio its essential tragic tinta. The one number
in the major key, ‘Angels, ever bright and fair’,
became a Victorian parlour favourite. Morell is
at his most insipid here. Yet, as so often, Handel
transcends the verses’ platitudes with music
of serene simplicity and spiritual radiance.
While the heroine dominates the oratorio, each
of the other main characters is drawn with an
individuality that, again, goes far beyond Morell’s
libretto. At the one extreme is the unbending
Roman governor Valens, not a bloodthirsty
monster but a man who does things by the book
and is always in a hurry. His arias, uniquely in
this work, are marked by rapid tempos and
terse, impatient phrases. Septimius, the ‘good’
Roman who becomes ever more sympathetic to
the Christian cause, sings the most ornate and
suavely lyrical music in the oratorio. All three of
his arias remind us that by 1749 the Baroque was
being ousted by the galant style. Most vivid is
‘Tho’ the honours’ in Act 2, with its dramatisation
of the conflict between Septimius’s natural
humanity and his stern duty as a Roman officer.
At the heart of the oratorio is Theodora’s Prison
Scene in Act 2, an odyssey of the soul all the more
moving after the sybaritic Roman celebrations
that have gone before. The atmosphere of
nocturnal desolation and loneliness is chillingly
evoked in two orchestral ‘Symphonies’, with their
strange, desultory cries for unison flutes – the
only appearance of these pastoral instruments in
the whole work. Between the symphonies comes
the de profundis aria ‘In darkness deep’, in the
rare key of F sharp minor (even bolder coming
directly after the G minor of the first symphony),
The arias for Theodora’s lover Didymus,
all in major keys, have a gentle rapture that
complements the more searching and anguished
music for the heroine. Written for Gaetano
Guadagni (later to achieve wider fame as
Gluck’s first Orfeo), Didymus was the last role
Handel ever created for a castrato, and the most
introspective and unworldly. Even when the violins
have excited bursts of coloratura in his Act 1 aria
‘Kind heaven’ (at the words ‘With courage fire
me’), the vocal line remains tranquil, reflective.
3
open-minded Roman officer Septimius likewise
becomes a Christian. Didymus and Septimius
also enshrine the libretto’s concern with religious
tolerance and freedom of thought – topical issues
in the light of the recent Jacobite uprising and
the ensuing wave of anti-Catholic feeling. At the
same time Morell is obviously indebted to the
then fashionable ‘sentimental’ drama centring on
a virtuous heroine in extremis – familiar examples
are Samuel Richardson’s novels Clarissa (whose
protagonist’s story carries echoes of Theodora’s)
and Pamela and Handel’s own Susanna.
Didymus’s ethereal nature is epitomised by the
exquisitely chaste ‘Sweet Rose and Lily’ sung
over the sleeping Theodora in Act 2 – another
favourite with the Victorians – and the rarefied
aria that flowers into a duet just before the final
martyrdom. This rapt, glowing spirituality also
suffuses the magnificent arias Handel wrote
for Theodora’s fellow-Christian and confidante
Irene, a passive, milk-and-water figure in the
libretto who is transfigured by the warmth and
strength of her music: in her prayer for the
imperilled Theodora ‘Defend her heaven’,
where the densely woven string lines and tense
harmonies lend an undertow of agitation to
the ostensibly calm vocal line; and in the Act 1
aria, ‘When with rosy steps’, which is at once an
enchanting nature picture (the sunrise evoked by
a steadily rising line and a gradual crescendo)
and a fervent declaration of faith. Irene opens
the Third Act with another radiant prayer, ‘Lord
to thee each night and day’. Here the glorious
melody of the outer sections – quintessential
Handel in its breadth and nobility – contrasts
with the graphic vision of ‘convulsive rocks’
and rolling thunders in the central part.
As in several of his earlier oratorios, Handel
graphically characterises opposing cultures in
the choruses. A century and a half ago Edward
Fitzgerald dubbed the composer ‘a good old
pagan at heart’; and it is typical that Handel
extends his musical sympathy to the Romans, who
are not cruel sadists but unabashed sensualists,
singing in catchy dance rhythms and simple
textures (most of their music is a counterpointfree zone) to the colourful sounds of trumpets
and horns. In Morell’s libretto the Act 1 chorus
‘Forever thus stands fix’d the Doom’ expresses
the sort of blood lust that drew 18th-century
spectators to public floggings and hangings.
Handel denies the sense of the text, seizing
instead on the word ‘sweeter’ as a cue for music
of lilting pastoral grace. No less delectable is the
opening chorus of Act 2, ‘Queen of Summer’,
an up-tempo minuet that could have tripped its
way straight from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
The Christian choruses, gravely or radiantly
contrapuntal, share the tenderness and spirituality
of Theodora’s music; and each of the three
acts ends with a sublime choral climax. The
penultimate number of Act 2, the duet between
Didymus and Theodora, fuses human tragedy
with a transfigured ecstasy, the polyphonic
weave of its string accompaniment enriched
by a dusky independent strand for bassoons.
But Handel crowns even this spiritualised love
duet with the chorus he valued above all others,
‘He saw the lovely youth’, depicting Christ’s
raising of the widow’s dead son in St Luke’s
Gospel. This is an intensely dramatic piece that
simultaneously illustrates the gospel narrative
and encapsulates the Christians’ spiritual journey
from darkness to light. It begins with a halting,
fragmentary funeral dirge in B flat minor; then,
with a surprise shift to B flat major and block
chordal texture, the youth begins to revive; and
the movement ends with a fugal movement
of chastened joy, its striking subject a musical
metaphor for Morell’s ‘lowly the matron bow’d’.
Towards the close of Act 3, as the lovers prepare
for their martyrdom, even the normally jaunty
Romans are drawn into the Christians’ musical
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The oratorio’s two final numbers are a true
apotheosis: the E minor duet that grows
unexpectedly, and magically, out of Didymus’s
aria, music of unearthly purity tinged with the
ache of what might have been; and the G minor
chorus, ‘O Love divine’. Morell’s words here
might have suggested an exultant ending.
But Handel’s elegiac, valedictory music, partprayer, part-lullaby (reworked from an aria for
Dejanira in Hercules), leaves us in no doubt that
he viewed the fate of Theodora and Didymus
as essentially tragic. Several commentators,
including Winton Dean in his great study of
the oratorios, have likened this finale to the last
chorus of the St Matthew Passion. We know
little about Handel’s personal faith. But it is
hard to deny that this chorus conveys an intense
religious experience, and that for once Handel
and Bach, in so many ways musical and spiritual
antipodes, meet here on common ground.
Synopsis
Act 1
In fourth-century Antioch the Roman governor
Valens orders all to celebrate Emperor
Diocletian’s birthday and sacrifice to Jove.
Chastisement or death awaits anyone who
disobeys. The junior Roman officer Didymus,
who has secretly converted to Christianity, pleads
for tolerance. Valens angrily rebuffs him, but
he gets a more sympathetic hearing from his
fellow-officer Septimius. The scene changes to
a meeting of the persecuted Christians. Led by
Princess Theodora and her friend Irene, they
have renounced earthly pleasures and pray to be
inspired by divine love. A messenger brings news
of Valens’s decree and urges them to flee the city.
Irene reaffirms her trust in God’s protection. Sent
to arrest the Christians, Septimius warns them of
their predicament, and tells Theodora that her
Programme notes
punishment will be prostitution. She prays for
death rather than loss of her virginity and is led
away. Didymus arrives and vows to rescue her.
The Christians pray for the success of his mission.
interval: 20 minutes
Act 2
At the festival of Venus and Flora, Valens
sends Septimius to warn Theodora that she
will be violated by his soldiers unless she
joins in the pagan celebrations. In prison,
Theodora endures her dark night of the soul,
before finding courage in contemplation of
the afterlife. Didymus reveals to Septimius that
he is a Christian and persuades him to let him
into Theodora’s cell. Initially concealed by his
closed helmet, Didymus reveals his identity and
his plan: they will exchange clothes so that she
can escape disguised in his officer’s uniform.
Reluctant at first, Theodora eventually agrees.
They sing a duet of farewell. With a change of
scene, the Christians recount how Christ raised
from the dead the son of the widow of Nain.
interval: 20 minutes
Act 3
After Irene’s fervent prayer, Theodora appears.
The Christians give thanks for her deliverance,
and pray that Didymus will also be saved. A
messenger reports that he has been captured
and brought to court. Valens has decreed
that Theodora will be condemned to death
when found. Ignoring Irene’s pleas, she goes
to offer herself in Didymus’s place. In the final
scene Didymus and Theodora both try and
persuade Valens to let them die instead of
the other. Septimius, moved by their courage,
pleads for mercy. The Romans express bemused
admiration. Valens is implacable. Before they
are led to their execution, the pair look forward
to heavenly bliss. Irene and the Christians pray
that ‘an equal fire’ may inflame their own souls.
Programme note & synopsis © Richard Wigmore
Surtitles by Kenneth Chalmers
5
orbit in the grave, wondering chorus ‘How
strange their ends’. Like several other movements
in Theodora, this filches its main theme from the
Italian composer Giovanni Clari; but as ever,
Handel transmutes other men’s pewter into gold.
Peter Warren
Richard Haughton
About the performers
Harry Bicket
Rosemary Joshua
Harry Bicket conductor
Rosemary Joshua Theodora
Renowned as an opera and concert
conductor, Harry Bicket is especially noted for
his interpretation of Baroque and Classical
repertoire and became Artistic Director of
The English Concert in 2007. He became Chief
Conductor of Santa Fe Opera in October 2013.
Soprano Rosemary Joshua was born in
Cardiff and studied at the Royal College
of Music, of which she is now a Fellow.
Opera plans for the 2013/14 season include Liceu
Opera, Barcelona (Agrippina), Canadian Opera
Company (Hercules) and leading Santa Fe Opera
Company’s first performances of Beethoven’s
Fidelio. Extensive commitments with The English
Concert in their 40th-anniversary season include
the current tour of concert performances of
Theodora at Town Hall Birmingham, Théâtre
de Champs-Élysées, Carnegie Hall and around
the USA, and Wigmore Hall performances
featuring Sally Matthews and Lucy Crowe.
Highlights in the current season include the
title-role in this concert tour of Theodora,
her first Countess in a concert tour of The
Marriage of Figaro with the Freiburger Barock
Orchester under René Jacobs, John Adams’s
oratorio El Niño with the London Philharmonic
Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski and
Despina in staged performances of Così
fan tutte with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel.
Earlier stage highlights include the title-role in
The Cunning Little Vixen (La Scala, Netherlands
Opera and Opera National du Rhin), Tytania in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (La Scala), Adele
in Die Fledermaus (Metropolitan Opera), Anne
Trulove in The Rake’s Progress (Covent Garden,
Glyndebourne Festival and La Monnaie), Despina
in Così fan tutte (Covent Garden), Oscar in
Un ballo in maschera and Helen in the world
premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s Orest (Netherlands
Opera) and Susanna in The Marriage of
Figaro (Glyndebourne Festival, Bayerische
Staatsoper and Welsh National Opera).
6
Highlights of recent seasons include concerts,
recordings and touring with The English
Concert including a Wigmore Hall residency
with Ian Bostridge and appearances at both
the 2009 and 2012 BBC Proms, opera at
the Metropolitan (Rodelinda, Giulio Cesare,
La clemenza di Tito), Chicago Lyric (Rinaldo,
Hercules), Canadian (Orfeo) and Bordeaux
Operas (Alcina) and guest conducting with the
Chicago Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, Los Angeles
Chamber and St Paul Chamber orchestras.
Particularly acclaimed internationally for
her Handel roles, she has sung Cleopatra in
Peter Warren
Among her recent recordings are Mahler’s
Symphony No. 4 (Orchestre des Champs-Élysées/
Philippe Herreweghe), Purcell’s Harmonia
Sacra (Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset),
Handel duets with Sarah Connolly (The English
Concert/Bicket) and title-roles in Semele and
Partenope, Emilia in Flavio and Romilda in Serse
(Early Opera Company/Christian Curnyn).
Sarah Connolly
Sarah Connolly Irene
Born in County Durham, mezzo-soprano Sarah
Connolly studied piano and singing at the
Royal College of Music, of which she is now
a Fellow. She was made CBE in the 2010 New
Year’s Honours List. In 2011 she was honoured
by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and
presented with the Distinguished Musician
Her operatic appearances include Fricka (Das
Rheingold and Die Walküre) at Covent Garden,
Purcell’s Dido at La Scala, Komponist (Ariadne auf
Naxos) and Clairon (Capriccio) at the Metropolitan
Opera, Gluck’s Orfeo at the Bayerische
Staatsoper, Munich, the title-role in Giulio
Cesare and Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) at the
Glyndebourne Festival, Sesto (La clemenza di Tito)
in Aix-en-Provence, Phèdre (Hippolyte et Aricie)
at the Paris Opéra and Nerone (L’incoronazione
di Poppea) at Florence’s Maggio Musicale
and the Gran Teatro del Liceu, Barcelona.
About the performers
Award. She is also the recipient of the Royal
Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award.
Engagements this season include the title-roles
in Agrippina at the Gran Teatro del Liceu and in
a new production of Ariodante at the Aix-enProvence Festival. On the concert platform she
will sing Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier (National
Symphony Orchestra of Washington/Christoph
Eschenbach and London Symphony Orchestra/
Sir Mark Elder), Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Boston
Symphony Orchestra/Christoph von Dohnányi),
Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (BBC Symphony
Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis) and Mendelssohn’s
Elijah (Filarmonica della Scala/Daniel Harding).
She has appeared at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh,
Lucerne, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Three Choirs
Festivals and at the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she
was a memorable guest soloist at the Last Night.
She has appeared in recital at the Wigmore Hall,
Cheltenham Festival and in New York’s Alice Tully
Hall with Malcolm Martineau; at the Edinburgh
Festival with John Horler and at the Wigmore
Hall, Oxford Lieder and Cheltenham festivals and
in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall with Eugene Asti.
She has recorded prolifically and twice
been nominated for a Grammy Award.
7
Giulio Cesare (Paris, Florida and Netherlands
Opera), Angelica in Orlando (Aix-en-Provence,
Covent Garden and Bayerische Staatsoper),
Ginevra in Ariodante (San Diego and Moscow),
Poppea in Agrippina (La Monnaie, Cologne
and Paris), Nitocris in Belshazzar (Aix-enProvence, Deutsche Staatsoper, Innsbruck and
Toulouse) and the title-roles in Semele (Aixen-Provence, Innsbruck, Cologne and English
National Opera) and Partenope (ENO).
Ben Ealovega
Passion with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging
and Messiah with the Royal Scottish National
Orchestra and Le Concert d’Astrée. Future
seasons include Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s
Dream), a world premiere at the Concertgebouw
Amsterdam, his debut at the Opera Theatre
of Saint Louis and a solo recital in Rome.
Tim Mead
Tim Mead Didymus
British countertenor Tim Mead read Music
as a choral scholar at King’s College,
Cambridge, before winning a number
of scholarships to continue his vocal
studies at the Royal College of Music.
Most recently he has earned critical acclaim
as the Voice of Apollo in Deborah Warner’s
production of Death in Venice at English
National Opera and the Netherlands Opera;
Angel 1/Boy in George Benjamin’s Written
on Skin at the Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse;
Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) at ENO and Eustazio
(Rinaldo) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
On the concert platform highlights include
Messiah with the New York Philharmonic,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment,
Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI,
Accademia Bizantina and Concerto Köln, Bach’s
Christmas Oratorio with Les Arts Florissants
and his Magnificat with Le Concert d’Astrée.
8
Engagements this season include Endimione
(La Calisto) at Bayerische Staatsoper, Goffredo
(Rinaldo) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera,
Written on Skin at the Gulbenkian, Lisbon,
the current tour of Theodora, St Matthew
Kurt Streit
Kurt Streit Septimius
Considered one of the world’s finest Mozart
interpreters, Kurt Streit has performed The
Magic Flute in 23 different productions around
the world (over 150 performances) and
Idomeneo in eight different productions.
His broad repertoire encompasses works from
composers such as Britten (Death in Venice at
Theater an der Wien), Pfitzner (Palestrina in
Frankfurt), Janá∂ek (Kat’a Kabanova in London,
Amsterdam and Brussels, both tenor roles in
Jen≤fa in Chicago and Amsterdam and From
the House of the Dead at the Metropolitan
Opera), Wagner (Erik in Der fliegende Holländer
in Barcelona and Munich and Loge in Das
Rheingold in Frankfurt and Barcelona), Berlioz
(Les Troyens in Geneva, La damnation de
Faust in Madrid), Bizet (Carmen with Nikolaus
Harnoncourt at the Styriarte Fesitval in Graz) and
Beethoven (Fidelio in Vienna), all the while keeping
his Mozart interpretations alive with the title-
Sussie Ahlburg
A two-time Grammy nominee (Brahms’s
Liebeslieder-Walzer and Bach cantatas), Kurt Streit
can be seen and heard on DVDs of Rodelinda
from Glyndebourne and Idomeneo from Naples.
His discography includes two recordings of
Così fan tutte with Daniel Barenboim and Sir
Simon Rattle, The Magic Flute, Die Entführung
aus dem Serail, Cherubini’s Mass in D minor
with Riccardo Muti and Franz Schmidt’s Das
Buch mit Sieben Siegeln with Harnoncourt
conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. More
recently he recorded Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony with Rattle and the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra and Mozart’s Requiem
with Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Wien.
Neal Davies
Neal Davies Valens
the World Competition. He has appeared
with the Oslo Philharmonic, BBC Symphony,
Cleveland, Philharmonia, London Symphony
and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, with
Sir Mark Elder, Paul McCreesh, Ivor Bolton,
Mariss Jansons, Pierre Boulez, Christoph
von Dohnányi, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Frans
Brüggen and Daniel Harding. He has been
a regular guest at the Edinburgh Festival and
the BBC Proms, and has recorded widely.
About the performers
roles in La clemenza di Tito and Idomeneo. His
specialities also include Handel and Monteverdi.
His operatic appearances have included
Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) and Giulio
Cesare for the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden; L’Allegro, Zebul (Jephtha), Publio
(La clemenza di Tito), Ariodates (Xerxes) and
Kolenaty (The Makropoulos Case) for English
National Opera; Guglielmo and Don Alfonso
(Così fan tutte), Papageno (The Magic Flute),
Leporello, Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore) and
Zebul and Sharpless (Madama Butterfly) for
Welsh National Opera. He has also sung with
Scottish Opera, Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin,
and Lyric Opera of Chicago. With William
Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Neal Davies
has sung in Theodora (Paris and Salzburg) and
in the Aix-en-Provence Festival production of
Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (Aix, Edinburgh
and New York), which is available on DVD.
Highlights this season include the recent
Barbican Centre production of Curlew River at
St Giles, Cripplegate, and his returns to ENO
and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
9
Neal Davies studied at King’s College, London,
and the Royal Academy of Music, and won
the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of
Richard Haughton
The English Concert
The English Concert
The 2013/14 season marks the 40th
anniversary of The English Concert. With
an unsurpassed reputation for inspiring
performances of Baroque and Classical
music, The English Concert ranks among the
finest chamber orchestras in the world.
Created by Trevor Pinnock in 1973, the orchestra
appointed Harry Bicket as its Artistic Director
in 2007 and has toured with him to Europe, the
USA and the Middle and Far East. Harry Bicket
is renowned for his work with singers, and The
English Concert’s vocal collaborators in recent
seasons have included Mark Padmore, Ian
Bostridge, Vesselina Kasarova, Lucy Crowe,
Elizabeth Watts, Carolyn Sampson, Danielle de
Niese, Andreas Scholl and Sarah Connolly.
This season The English Concert will appear
across the country from Gateshead and
Ryedale, North Yorkshire, via Hereford,
Birmingham and Warwick, to Bristol as
well as Aldeburgh and Southampton.
10
Recent highlights include European and
US tours with Alice Coote, Sara Mingardo,
Anna Caterina Antonacci, David Daniels
and Andreas Scholl and the orchestra’s first
tour to mainland China. The English Concert
enjoys a strong relationship with audiences in
North America, having recently performed in
Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, Ann
Arbor and New York. Following the success
of Handel’s Radamisto in New York last year,
Carnegie Hall has commissioned one Handel
opera each season from The English Concert.
This year’s choice, Theodora, will tour to the
West Coast of the USA as well as to the Théâtre
des Champs-Élysées. Future seasons will see
performances of Handel’s Alcina and Orlando.
Other recent highlights have included Harry
Bicket directing The English Concert and Choir
in Bach’s Mass in B minor at the 2012 Leipzig
Bachfest and later that year at the BBC Proms.
The English Concert’s discography includes more
than 100 recordings with Trevor Pinnock for DG
Archiv and a series of critically acclaimed CDs for
Harmonia Mundi with violinist Andrew Manze.
Recordings with Harry Bicket have been widely
praised, including Lucy Crowe’s debut solo
recital, Il caro Sassone. In October EMI Classics
released Sound the Trumpet, a recording of
Baroque music for trumpet with Alison Balsom
and The English Concert directed by Pinnock. A
new recording with music by Handel and mezzosoprano Alice Coote is due for release this year.
The English Concert works with several
distinguished guest directors, including
violinist Fabio Biondi and harpsichordists
Laurence Cummings and Kenneth Weiss.
About the performers
Choir of Trinity Wall Street
The Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity
Wall Street is the premier vocal ensemble
at Trinity Wall Street. Under the direction of
Julian Wachner, the choir leads the liturgical
music at Trinity Church during Sunday
services, performs in concerts throughout
the year and has made recordings for
Naxos, Musica Omnia and Avie Records.
In addition to its liturgical and concert work,
the choir has also appeared at Mostly Mozart
(Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with the Mark Morris
Dance Group), the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, The Cloisters and with the Rolling Stones on
their 50th-anniversary tour. It was also chosen
to perform Arvo Pärt’s Passio in a mixed-media
collaboration with Paolo Cherchi Usai’s film of
the same name at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The choir is increasingly in demand around
the world, and this season sees the ensemble
performing at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center,
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Paris’s Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées and here at the Barbican.
Soprano
Sarah Brailey
Linda Lee Jones
Sherezade Panthaki
Molly Quinn
Melanie Russell
Elizabeth Weigle
Elena Williamson
Alto
Melissa Attebury
Luthien Brackett
Eric Brenner
Marguerite Krull
Deborah Wong
Tenor
Eric Dudley
Andrew Fuchs
Matthew Hensrud
Timothy Hodges
Steven Caldicott
Wilson (Messenger)
Bass
Adam Alexander
Dashon Burton
Kelvin Chan
Christopher Herbert
Steven Hrycelak
Thomas McCargar
Jonathan Woody
Director
Julian Wachner
Trinity Choir Contractor
Thomas McCargar
11
Choir of Trinity Wall Street
The English Concert
Violin 1
Nadja Zwiener leader
Sophie Barber
Thérèse Timoney
Silvia Schweinberger
Almut Schlicker
Cello
Joseph Crouch
Piroska Baranyay
Horn
Ursula Paludan Monberg
Martin Lawrence
Double Bass
Peter McCarthy
Violin 2
Iona Davies
Tuomo Suni
Elizabeth MacCarthy
Persephone Gibbs
Flute
Lisa Beznosiuk
Trumpet
Mark Bennett
Stian Aareskjold
Viola
Alfonso Leal del Ojo
Mark Braithwaithe
Oliver Wilson
Oboe
Katharina Spreckelsen
Hannah McLaughlin
Theorbo
William Carter
Organ
Stephen Farr
Bassoon
Alberto Grazzi
Sally Jackson
Chief Executive
Gijs Elsen
Orchestra Manager
Sarah Fenn
Audience Development
Manager
Zara June Roelse
Development Manager
Alan Moore
Keyboard provision
Claire Hammett
barbican.org.uk
Where will the
music take you?
Thu 27 Feb, Milton Court
Academy of Ancient Music/
Richard Tognetti
Concertos by Vivaldi and JS Bach
Thu 6 Mar, Hall
Rameau Les Indes Galantes/
Les Talens Lyriques
Rameau’s portrait of love in four exotic lands
Wed 7 May, Hall
Julia Lezhneva/
Il Giardino Armonico
Italian arias by Handel