Agrippina

Recording Handel's operas can be tricky. Overly immaculate studio readings tend to rob the long chains of recitatives and arias of the immediacy they need to stay interesting; and live recordings tend to be messy, not to mention noisy. This Agrippina, by Jean-Claude Malgoire and La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy, and starring Veronique Gens as the titular anti-heroine, certainly suffers from some "live-itis:" the orchestra isn't always sharp, orchestra and singers are occasionally out of phase, and there is plenty of audience and stage noise.

Handel was first and foremost a composer of opera. It was his passion for opera which first led him away from his homeland to Italy. Handel soon became the darling of Italian opera lovers, and ended his three-year sojourn with a triumphant production of his opera Agrippina in Venice in 1709. It ran for an unprecedented 27 nights.

The programme presented by Ann Hallenberg for DHM is a homage to the historical roman figure of Agrippina, one of the earliest historical women to inspire the fantasy of librettists and composers. Ann Hallenberg and a team of musicologists researched the musical archives to unearth all surviving operatic manuscripts containing the figure of Agrippina. Twelve of the arias are WORLD PREMIERE RECORDINGS. Apart from Handel’s famous opera ‘Agrippina’ and Telemann’s ‘Germanicus’, all music on this album has been recorded for the first time.

Handel composed Agrippina at the end of a three-year sojourn in Italy. It premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo on 26 December 1709. It proved an immediate success and an unprecedented series of 27 consecutive performances followed. Observers praised the quality of the music—much of which, in keeping with the contemporary custom, had been borrowed and adapted from other works, including the works of other composers. Despite the evident public enthusiasm for the work, Handel did not promote further stagings.