Rodelinda

ABC Classics is proud to release a new live recording of highlights from Handel’s rarely heard opera Rodelinda, with legendary Australian conductor Richard Bonynge.
Rodelinda contains everything one would expect from a Handel opera: tangled love, jealousy, botched schemes, a joyous ending – and of course sublime music. Written in 1725, when Handel was at the height of his powers, it is truly a jewel in the crown of the Baroque repertoire.

Renée Fleming and Andreas Scholl lead a superb cast in Stephen Wadsworth’s celebrated production of Handel’s Rodelinda from the Metropolitan Opera – based on the "Live in HD" transmission to cinemas worldwide. The title role is unique in featuring no less than eight magnificent arias. Renée Fleming’s triumph in the first run of the production was hailed by The New York Times, "Ms Fleming draws on every resource of her artistry in this portrayal: luminous sound, exquisite ornamentation, floating high notes, emotional volatility."

Rodelinda, Regina de' Longobardi was the 7th opera Handel wrote for the Royal Academy of Music founded in 1719. It was premiered at the King's Theater in the Haymarket on February 13, 1725, with great success, as chroniclers report. There were 14 performances in the first season and 8 in each of the revivals in the following season and in 1731, for which Handel revised the work. Thus, it is not surprising that, after nearly 190 years of oblivion, it should have been Rodelinda, now in a German language version and called Rodelinde, which marked the beginning of the 20th century revival of Handel's operas on June 26, 1920, during the Gottingen Handel Festival.

Few record labels from the dawn of the LP era are recalled with more admiration and affection than Westminster Records – its first records from 1950 established Westminster as a pioneering source, exploring new and exciting corners of repertoire.

Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.

With rich texture and bold femininity, Jeanine De Bique releases her debut album 'Mirrors' on October 22, 2021 on Berlin Classics! Miss De Bique is accompanied by the renowned baroque orchestra Concerto Köln, with musical direction by Luca Quintavalle. The album focuses on baroque arias and includes three world premiere recordings. Arias of heroines such as Rodelinda, Alcina and Cleopatra, composed by George Friderich Handel and his contemporaries - Carl Heinrich Graun, Riccardo Broschi and Georg Philipp Telemann complete the program.