Aspasia

Alexander Balus brings to completion The King's Consort's series of Handel's four 'military' oratorios (the other three being Judas Maccabaeus, The Occasional Oratorio, and Joshua).
The story is a somewhat embellished retelling of chapters 10 and 11 from the first book of the Apocryphal Maccabees and involves complicated intrigues between the Jews, Syrians and Egyptians in the second century BC. To cut a long story short, Alexander Balus, King of Syria, is eventually defeated in battle by Ptolomee of Egypt and then killed by an Arab; but Ptolomee himself dies just three days later allowing Jonathan, the Chief of the Jews, to remind us of the fate of those who do not believe in the One God.

Axur, re d'Ormus is an Italian version of Salieri's 1787 opera Tarare, which had been written in French, to a libretto by Beaumarchais; da Ponte then prepared this Italian version for performance in Vienna. It was the composer's greatest hit, remaining in the repertoire for decades. The final 62 seconds of Axur were performed in the movie Amadeus, intended to reinforce the opinions of both Mozart and Salieri that the latter was a hack…

Axur, re d'Ormus is an operatic dramma tragicomico in five acts by Antonio Salieri. The libretto was by Lorenzo da Ponte. Axur is the Italian version of Salieri's 1787 French-language work Tarare which had a libretto by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. Axur premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 8 January 1788, the title role being sung by Francesco Benucci, Mozart's first Figaro. It became one of the most famous operas in Vienna, being performed much more frequently than Mozart's Don Giovanni, which was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1788.

Anri (杏里), real name Eiko Kawashima (川嶋 栄子, Kawashima Eiko) (born August 31, 1961), is a Japanese pop singer-songwriter. Her debut release was the 1978 Oribia o Kikinagara (While Listening to Olivia), written by Amii Ozaki. Her song "Cat's Eye" was used as the first opening theme for the eponymous 1983 anime series Cat's Eye and debuted as #1 on Countdown Japan.

“Yvonne Kenny was already experienced in the role of Aspasia when this production was filmed in 1986, and here she is musically agile and dramatically compelling. Rockwell Blake is vocally muscular as Mitridate… The American soprano Ashley Putnam was simply an inspired choice for the… trouser-role of Sifare, and the rest of the cast is good. The direction is fluid…” BBC Music Magazine

"Alexander Balus" has a poor reputation that is at least partly undeserved. Although the plot is adapted from Macabees, the title suggests its basis in history. This makes it an anomaly among Handel’s dramatic oratorios, whose sources are usually Greek myth or the Bible. The title also makes it easy to confuse it with one of the operas. What sticks most in memory is that it’s not supposed to be very good, and for that reason I ignored it for a long time while building my Handel collection. When I finally decided to check it out I was pleasantly surprised.