Halle (Saale), 19€¦ · Web viewSpecial guided tour of Handel House. June 2 and 9, 2017, 3pm Ι Handel House, Sound Workshop and Exhibition of Period Musical Instruments. Auf

Media contact: Maria ScheunpflugPress and PR Work Officer

Tel.: +49 (0) 345 / 500 90 126Fax: +49 (0) 345 / 500 90 416Email: [email protected]

in Halle (Saale) since 1922May 26 – June 11, 2017

PRESS KIT 2017 Halle Handel Festival

PRESS KIT

for the presentation of the 2017 Handel Festival pro-gramme,

the festival in authentic venues in the city of

George Frideric Handel’s birth

Press Conference14pm on May 26, 2017, in the Chamber Music Hall of Han-del House, Grosse Nikolaistrasse 5, 06108 Halle an der Saale

Patron Prof. Monika Grütters MdB, Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media

With: Dr. Bernd Wiegand, Mayor of the City of Halle / President of the Handel House Foundation Board of Trustees

Dr. Gunnar Schellenberger, Staatssekretär für Kultur des Landes Sachsen-Anhalts, Mitglied des Kuratoriums der Stiftung Händel-Haus

Jana Semerádová, Musical Director (Collegium Marianum and „Acis & Galatea“, May 27, 28 & 30 In the Goethe-Theater in Bad Lauchstädt)

Tatjana Gürbaca, Director („Jephtha“, May 26 & 28 and June 2 & 4 in the Oper Halle)

Christoph Spering, Musical Director („Jephtha“, May 26 & 28 and June 2 & 4 in the Oper Halle)

Clemens Birnbaum, Director of the Handel House Foundation and Executive Director of the Halle Handel Festival

Musical accompanimentJana Semerádová (tranverse flute) / Marek Čermák (harpsichord)George Frideric HandelSonate in e-moll HWV 375

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mailto:[email protected]






Adagio – Allegro – Grave – Minuet

This press kit is a continuation and update of the press kits of November 2016. Important new entries are marked “New”.Contents

2017 Handel Festival: “Original? – Counterfeit?” (summary) Pages 3 - 4The festival theme: “Original? – Counterfeit?” Pages 4 – 5New: Visitor information Page 6New: Information on ticket sales Page 6 Operas and ballet performances/new productions Pages 7 - 8Oratorios Pages 9 - 10Gala concerts and international stars Pages 11 - 12Festival classics and crowd-pullers Page 13Building bridges between different musical genres Page 13Academic conference Page 14Free events Page 14New: Broadcasts and concert recordings at the Handel Festival

Page 15New: Official start of advance ticket sales for Handel in Autumn Page

162017 Handel Prize winner Page 17New: 300 years of Water Music Page 18New: The Hooters frontman Eric Bazilian at Bridges to Classics

Page 18The Handel House Foundation museums during the festival Page 19Facts and figures Page 20Patrons and sponsors Page 21

Press release by Lotto-Toto GmbH Sachsen-AnhaltPress release by HWG Hallesche Wohnungsgesellschaft mbH Press release by Stadtwerke Halle GmbH

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2017 Handel Festival: “Original? – Counterfeit?”

In Halle an der Saale, you can hear Handel the whole year round, but a very special atmosphere overtakes the city during the Handel Fest-ival in spring. This festival has taken place in Halle every year since 1952 in the venues that marked his early years, and each time, mu-sical milestones are set by top ensembles and artists from all over the world.

Dr. Bernd Wiegand, Mayor of Halle / President of the Handel House Foundation Board of Trustees: “In 2017, the focus of the international Handel Festival will be on Biblical themes in Handel’s works. By choos-ing this theme, Saxony-Anhalt’s greatest music festival and Halle an der Saale, the city of the composer birth located in the core region of the Reformation, are underscoring the city’s cultural potential. This is attracting international attention quite particularly in the year of the

Reformation anniversary which is being observed worldwide, and could provide important impetus for the application of our open-

minded, creative and growing city for the title of European Capital of Culture 2025.

In 2017, a fascinating and diverse festival programme awaits visitors once again. The Handel Festival will be officially opened at the Handel Monument on May 26, 2017, by tradition on Marktplatz. During the en-suing 17 festival days, an irresistible mixture of top-notch Baroque, Classical, jazz, electronic and world music by internationally renowned soloists, ensembles and choirs will be enthusing audiences with the theme of “Original – Counterfeit?”. A total of ten ECHO Klassik award winners will be taking the stage, including Il Pomo d'Oro, the Pera En-semble, Concerto Köln and Lautten Compagney Berlin, as well as the outstanding Vivica Genaux, Ann Hallenberg and Sonia Prina, each of whom will be giving their own gala concert. The celebrated coun-tertenor Xavier Sabata and Spanish tenor Juan Sancho will also be en-thralling audiences in gala concerts. Audiences will be able to enjoy magical puppet-theatre performances of Acis and Galatea, HWV49a, and Giustino, HWV 37, in the historic Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauch-städt. Anyone who remembers the wonderful puppet production of 3





Rinaldo in 2011 will know that a very special theatre experience awaits visitors. Fans of historically informed performance practice can look forward to a special event in the Carl Maria von Weber Theatre in Bernburg: not only does Musica Florea perform using a historically in-formed approach; the choreography and costumes of the Hartig En-semble are also based on historic models.The 2017 Handel Festival will present five different oratorios in honour of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The climax of these is set to be the fully staged performance of Jephtha at the Halle Opera. The musical director of this new production is Christoph Spering; the stage director is Tatjana Gürbaca. Messiah, HWV 56, probably Handel’s best-known oratorio, will be performed twice: the Dublin version of 1742 can be heard in Halle Cathedral and the London version of 1743 in the Marktkirche. Also awaiting visitors is a new production of Esther based on the Halle Handel Edition, Deborah, an interfaith project by the Ab-rahamic world religions, and concerts spanning various musical genres, such as the different Baroque Lounge, jazz and late-night con-certs, as well as the open-air events on Domplatz and in Galgenberg Gorge.Clemens Birnbaum, director of the Handel House Foundation and the Festival’s executive director, is delighted: „Once again, we have suc-ceeded in putting together a multifaceted programme for our visitors from far and wide which will appeal not only to classic Handel lovers. This would not have been possible without the support of numerous partners, including the City of Halle, the State of Saxony-Anhalt and the Federal Government. But my thanks also go to our longstanding

partners, such as the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung, the Saalespar-kasse and Lotto Sachsen-Anhalt. Without their support, we would not have been able to welcome the Czech production of Acis and Galatea, or Messiah, featuring Concerto Köln and the Bavarian Radio Choir in

the church where Handel was baptised.”

The festival theme: “Original? – Counterfeit?”

With “Original? – Counterfeit?”, the 2017 Handel Festival picks up on a current and highly controversial issue. At the same time, we have to realise that every original that is reproduced represents another ori-ginal in its own right. Quite different terms exist to describe this new original, depending on the moral or legal assessment of it, or in rela-tion to its use and exploitation: imitation, replica, copy, borrowing, citation and counterfeit are just some examples. Even back in the eighteenth century, copyright, pirate editions, counterfeits, etc., were an issue. Handel himself tried to defend himself against the unauthor-ised reproduction of his compositions by requesting from the king of England a royal Privilege for printing his works, which he received in 1720. An early copyright act had even been passed in England in 1710: the Statute of Anne. Handel himself, on the other hand, used the music of other composers without hesitation, without asking and without acknowledgement. In musicology, this is called “borrowing”. 4





These borrowings ranged from single musical themes to whole arias. It has to be stated that Handel used this technique extensively, more than virtually any other composer of the time, and that it there-fore represents a fundamental characteristic of his compositional style. So what, given the context, should we regard as the actual ori-ginal? Why are Handel's pasticci, that is, new operas which Handel compiled from works by other composers or his own, listed in the ap-pendix to the index of his works, while his oratorio Deborah, which was also largely compiled from extant works of his own, was included in the main index? Also, when you consider that numerous of Handel’s oratorios and operas have come down to us in several versions, the question of which version is the original is even more pertinent. Or are they all originals? And let us point out another difficulty facing Handel researchers: various copies (or are they pirated versions?) of diverse works by Handel have come down to us, while in other manuscripts works are ascribed to Handel erroneously (or is it a case of conscious forgery?). We are always having to ask ourselves the question of what, in Handel’s work, is actually the original.

The Handel House Foundation would like to thank all those without whose support the Handel Festival could not take place. These are, first and foremost, the festival's founder, the City of Halle an der Saale, and the State of Saxony-Anhalt. The Federal Government Com-missioner for Culture and the Media has also for the past few years co-funded one major festival project, for which she has our sincerest thanks. We are very much obliged to our local partner, the Saalespar-kasse, which, in collaboration with the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstif-tung, has been extremely active in recent years, enabling, among other things, a number of outstanding operas to be produced at the Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauchstädt. Lotto Sachsen-Anhalt has for sev-eral years now presented the traditional performance of Messiah in the church where Handel was baptised, to the great delight of the nu-merous visitors to the Marktkirche. Hallesche Wohnungsgesellschaft is continuing its involvement this year, with a free event on Domplatz. For their support for the gala concerts, many thanks also to Total Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland, GP Günter Papenburg AG, Stroer Deutsche Städte Medien, Stadtwerke Halle and Kathi Rainer Thiele GmbH.

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New:Visitor information

The 2017 Handel Festival Visitors’ Office in Handel House is open daily from May 24 to June 11, from 10am to 6pm. Visitors to the Handel Festival still have a good chance of getting tick-ets for numerous events from the Visitors’ Office of Handel House in Halle (Grosse Nikolaistrasse. 5, Grosser Innenhof), or at the box office.

If you want to find out more about this year's Handel Festival, we re-commend reading the festival magazine, available for the price of €3. This provides full festival information, with interesting features on the performers, background information on performances and much more besides.

Information on ticket sales

The two open-air events – Bridges to Classics on June 10, and the clos-ing concert on June 11, 2017, both at 9pm – will once again be enti-cing young and old to the Galgenberg Gorge. In Bridges to Classics, 6





Eric Bazilian, the frontman of the legendary US band The Hooters, will be taking centre stage. Some tickets are still available for both events!

Tip 1: Family tickets for the closing concert: one child under 14 ac-companied by one adult paying the full ticket price pays only ten euros.

Tip 2: Tickets for Bridges to Classics and the closing concert entitle holders to free transport on MDV vehicles in tariff zone 210 from two hours before the start of the event and for two hours after the end.

Tip 3: Concessionary student tickets are available for some events. For the “Baroque Lounge I: Flow” concert on May 28 in the Vault room of the Moritzburg, “Baroque Lounge II: Borrowings” starring Johannes Malfatti and Nadja Zwiener on June 2, “Rejazz Greatly” on June 5, “Baroque Lounge III: Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues” with the Sheridan Ensemble on June 8 (all three concerts in St. George’s Church), and “The German Mass” on June 11 in the Steintor, students pay only 15 euros instead of 20.

Tickets for the 2017 Handel Festival are available:

- In advance ticket booking agencies: CTS Eventim advance ticket sales offices all over Germany; in Saxony-Anhalt also from TiM Ticket in Mitteldeutsche Zeitung service centres and Galeria Kaufhof Passage in Halle

- Via our hotline: +49 (0)345 / 565 27 06 (Monday to Friday: 7am-7pm, Saturday: 7am-2pm)

- From the Visitors’ Office in the courtyard of Handel House, Grosse Nikolaistrasse 5

- Opening times: May 24-June 12, every day from 10 – 18pm - By phoning: 0345 / 500 90 444- At box offices (open one hour before the start of performances

at the respective venues)Operas and ballet performances/new productions

Jephtha HWV 70 (see Oratorios, fully staged new production)Giustino HWV 37 (opera, puppet theatre)Acis and Galatea HWV 49a (masque, puppet theatre, Cannons 1718)Terpsicore HWV 8b (ballet, fully staged)Sosarme, Re di Media HWV 30 (opera, fully staged revival)L’Elpidia, overo li rivali generosi HWV A1 (opera pasticcio, concertante performance) Aci, Galatea e Polifemo HWV 72 (Serenata a tre, concertante perform-ance, Naples version of 1708)

At the Halle Handel Festival, you can experience the abundance and variety of Baroque music as nowhere else, with the staging of five

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Baroque masterpieces, including two puppet-theatre productions and ballets.

Many people still remember the enchanting puppet-theatre production of Handel’s Rinaldo a few years ago in the Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauchstädt, by Milan-based Carlo Colla e Figli and Lautten Compagney Berlin. The DVD of this Rinaldo production is still a top seller. Now, on June 9, 10 and 11, 2017, there will be the long-waited follow-up, a new production of a Handel opera: Giustino, HWV 37. This opera in Baroque tableaux, with sea battles, fire-spitting dragons and advan-cing armies and performed by emotionally credible marionettes, is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Lautten Compagney Berlin have already proved themselves competent Handel interpreters with a variety of opera productions to their credit. They delight audiences with their lively approach to early music, performing on period instruments with imaginative and com-pelling musical artistry. The Carlo Colla e Figli puppet theatre from Milan has been “pulling strings” for more than 200 years. The historic Goethe Theatre is one of the Handel Festival’s most popular venues. It was built in 1802, its construction being directed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Another puppet production will be taking place in the his-toric Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauchstädt on May 27, 28 and 29, 2017, by the Buchty a Loutky puppet-theatre company from Prague. Accom-panied by Collegium Marianum under the direction of flautist Jana Se-merádová, they will present Acis and Galatea HWV 49a. The story of the shepherd Acis, the nymph Galatea and the cyclops Polyphemus from Ovid’s Metamorphoses will be lovingly retold with enchanting wooden marionettes. A concertante performance of an earlier version of Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, HWV 72, can be heard in the Löwenge-bäude of Halle University. Both performances are based on the latest academic findings of the Halle Handel Edition and are in the original language with German supertitles. Is this version of the Serenata a tre, which was first performed on July 19, 1708, in Naples, and is to be performed under the baton of Peter Neumann and his Collegium Cartusianum, the original version by Handel? It is worth comparing versions, especially when the Serenata is performed by such outstand-ing soloists as Julia Doyle, Luciana Mancini and Andreas Wolf – it is hard to image a livelier or more thrilling performance. Both perform-ances of Acis und Galatea are generously sponsored by the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung and the Saalesparkasse.

Dr. Jürgen Fox, Chairman of the Saalesparkasse Executive Board un-derscores: “Promoting culture is a particular concern of ours. The fact that by supporting productions in Bad Lauchstädt we are helping to

bring the Handel Festival to audiences outside the city precincts is es-pecially welcome to us as the regional Sparkasse of the city of Halle

and the Saale district.”

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The Carl Maria von Weber Theatre in Bernburg has been a venue of the Handel Festival since 2016. Next year, the ballet Terpsicore, HWV 8b, by George Frideric Handel and Les Caractères de la Danse by Jean-Féry Rebel will be staged there by the Hartig En-semble. The dancers led by Helena Kazárová have been reconstruct-ing Baroque dances from English and French sources for the past 20 years. They will be accompanied by the Prague Baroque orchestra, Musica Florea, under the musical direction of Marek Štryncl. Terp-sicore was written as the prologue to the second version of Handel’s Il Pastor fido, HWV 8c. At that period, the ballet company led by the French dancer and choreographer Marie Sallé was in London and available for opera performances; it also inspired Handel to create bal-let numbers for his Alcina, HWV 34, and Ariodante, HWV 33. In some-thing akin to a crash course, the French composer J. F. Rebel explains the figures of the dances that were fashionable in ballrooms and on the stage, in Les Caractères de la Danse. A top-class Baroque and his-torical experience for the eyes and the ears in a charming little theatre awaits audiences.The highly successful production of Sosarme, Re di Media, HWV 30, at the 2016 festival will, of course, be repeated next year. For the stage direction and scenery design of this performance based on the Halle Handel Edition, Halle Opera engaged the internationally success-ful director, Philipp Harnoncourt. The production met with an over-whelmingly positive response from the public and the press. It offers one last opportunity to hear this rarely performed and unjustly forgot-ten Handel opera.The concertante performance of the pasticcio L’Elpidia, overo li rivali generosi, HWV A1, will be given by the UK ensemble Opera Settecento, directed by Leo Duarte. Handel did not use his own works for the pasticcio, but borrowed mainly from Venetian operas. L’Elpidia was premiered on May 11, 1725, in the King’s Theatre and was a huge success. This is the first time that it will be performed in Halle. Opera Settecento is one of the leading early music ensembles in the UK and regularly gets a rapturous reception from its audiences, including at the London Handel Festival. Together with an excellent group of so-loists, they will be offering absolutely top-level Baroque music in the Freylinghausen Hall of the Franckesche Stiftungen.

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Oratorios at the Handel FestivalOne key part of the 2017 Reformation anniversary

Jephtha HWV 70 (fully staged, new production)Esther HWV 50b

Deborah HWV 51Messiah HWV 56 (Dublin version)Messiah HWV 56 (1743 London version)Passion: St. John Passion

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance: six different, major oratorios can be heard during the 17 days of the 2017 Handel Festival in Halle an der Saale. With them, the music festival in the city of the composer’s birth and the region where the Reformation first started is adding a clear musical tone to the calendar of events in the Reformation celeb-rations.

The first highpoint will be the fully staged, new production of Jephtha, HWV 70, at Halle Opera. Handel composed this oratorio towards the end of his life. His last opera before that had been written twelve years previously. And yet this oratorio has irresistible appeal thanks to numerous vivid moments of pure theatre which unleash a gripping drama of vows and paternal love. With its gigantic choruses and af-fect-laden arias, Handel achieved a pinnacle of musical excellence in his career in 1752. Jephtha was premiered on February 26, 1752, in the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden in London. The libretto was writ-ten by Thomas Morell, based on the Book of Judges in the Old Testa-ment of the Bible. The oratorio will be performed in the Halle Handel Edition version on the first evening of the 2017 Handel Festival, at the Halle Opera. The music will be performed by the Handel Festival Or-chestra, conducted by Christoph Spering. The internationally sought-after stage director Tatjana Gürbaca will be working at Halle Opera for the first time at the 2017 Handel Festival.

Handel composed the oratorio Esther as a masque as early as 1718 and frequently rewrote the work. On May 2, 1732, he presented a new version in the King’s Theatre. In Esther, HWV 50b, Handel used two of his Coronation Anthems with a new text. It met with such an enthu-siastic response from the London audiences that all six performances were sold out. The royal family is even said to have attended perform-ances on four evenings. One of the singers was the star castrato, Sen-esino. On June 3, 2017, contemporary soloists of international renown, including Antonio Giovannini (altus), Raffaella Milanesi (soprano) and Thomas Bauer (bass) will be appearing on the stage of George Frideric Handel Hall. They will be accompanied by Fabio Bonizzoni and La Risonanza, an ensemble which at the 2016 Handel Festival thrilled audiences with their Italian esprit, and by the Capella Cracoviensis

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Choir. With this new production based on the Halle Handel Edition and sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, we can anticipate a benchmark performance.Another great choral oratorio is to be held in the church where Handel was baptised: on June 1, 2017, Capella Cracoviensis, under the mu-sical direction of Jan Tomasz Adamus, and an excellent line-up of so-loists including Xavier Sabata will perform Handel’s Deborah, HWV 51, in the Marktkirche in Halle. Capella Cracoviensis and Adamus de-lighted audiences at the 2014 Handel Festival with their interpretation of Messiah. The libretto for Deborah was written by Samuel Humphreys. Handel compiled the oratorio largely from compelling movements from earlier works. In today’s parlance, you could say that Deborah is a compilation of Handel’s “greatest hits”. The performance is sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.A few years after the writing and performances of Deborah and after more than 20 opera seasons in London – after successes, flops and health problems – Handel reinvented himself. Within the space of three weeks, he wrote one of his greatest works: Messiah, HWV 56. The Dublin version, which was premiered on April 13, 1742, in Neale’s Music Hall on Fishamble Street in Dublin, will be performed, again with the support of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, in Halle Cathedral by the British ensemble Solomon’s Knot baroque collective, conducted by musical director Jonathan Sells. In Dublin, the work aroused wild enthusiasm even at the public rehears-als, and crowds thronged to buy tickets. Similar displays of appreci-ation were shown to the Solomon’s Knot baroque collective when this fairly unknown English ensemble first appeared at the 2016 Bach Fest-ival in Leipzig. Their collective spirit of performance means that this ensemble is ideally suited to the sparsely instrumented, soloistic ori-ginal version of Messiah. Handel revised the work on several occa-sions. He never again performed Messiah as he had in 1742. He trans-posed parts, shortened or lengthened arias or changed the order. Which of these different versions is the "original work" cannot be answered in Handel’s case. It is all the more exciting to compare the ur-version with a London version of 1743. None other than Howard Ar-man, the Handel Prize winner of 1996, is the musical director of this Messiah in the church where Handel was baptised. He will be suppor-ted by the renowned ensemble Concerto Köln, the outstanding Bav-arian Radio Choir and a magnificent line-up of soloists. The perform-ance will take place on June 10, 2017, in the Marktkirche in Halle and is presented exclusively by Lotto Sachsen-Anhalt.The St. John Passion tells the story of the Passion of Jesus of Naz-areth as portrayed in the Gospel according to St. John. Everyone knows of the St. John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach, but even dyed-in-the-wool Handel connoisseurs might not be aware of the St John Passion which was for a long time ascribed to George Frideric Handel. Who was the real composer of this Passion remains a mystery to this day. A proven expert in early music, Roland Wilson, is con-

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vinced that Handel could be its composer. This is why, together with the ensemble Musica fiata, he will be presenting “his” unknown Handel on May 27, 2017, in Ulrichskirche Concert Hall. Even if the St. John Passion is not a work of Handel’s, it still contains some wonderful music. The performance of this almost unknown St. John Passion is sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Gala concerts and international stars

Besides the numerous opera and oratorio performances, visitors can enjoy five extraordinary gala concerts at the 2017 Handel Festival. In their own gala concerts, Vivica Genaux will be presenting a pro-gramme entitled “Il Pianto di Maria”, Ann Hallenberg “Carnevale 1729”, Xavier Sabata “Furioso” and Sonia Prina “Ombra cara”, while Juan Sancho will seeking out – and finding – the “Seven Deadly Sins” in Handel’s works.ECHO Klassik prize winner Ann Hallenberg will be celebrating the Venice carnival with the Il Pomo d’Oro ensemble. The Swedish mezzo-soprano has firmly established herself on the international concert landscape and has delighted audiences on several occasions at the Handel Festival in Halle. Il Pomo d’Oro is renowned for its fresh, clear sound. The passion of the musicians can be felt in their virtuosic play-ing. With Maxim Emelyanychev, the public can expect an exciting, en-ergy-laden concert. In early October, Il Pomo d’Oro won the ECHO Klassik award for the concert recording of the year (19th-century mu-sic). The concert on May 28, 2017, in Ulrichskirche Concert Hall, is sponsored by Kathi Rainer Thiele GmbH. Alto Sonia Prina is a Baroque music specialist and another ECHO Klassik award winner. Her dark-timbred alto voice is feted internationally and has been, on more than one occasion, at the Halle Handel Festival. Precisely her interpretation of “dark, shadowy figures" regularly earns her standing ovations – one only has to think of her performance in Catone in Ulrichskirche Con-cert Hall at the 2016 Handel Festival. Consequently, we can look for-ward all the more to the programme of her gala concert, scheduled for June 4, 2017, in Ulrichskirche Concert Hall and entitled: “Ombra cara” – “Dear Shadow”. At this concert, which is sponsored by GP Günter Pa-penburg AG, she will be accompanied by Armonia Atenea and George Petrou from Greece. One of the most sought-after countertenors will be appearing in the historic auditorium of Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg: Xavier Sabata. The Catalan will be accompanied

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furioso by the Spanish ensemble Vespres d’Arnadí, conducted by Dani Espasa.On Whit Monday, an internationally celebrated Baroque tenor will be giving a gala concert in the banqueting hall of the Leopoldina. Juan Sancho has already appeared with numerous top Baroque ensembles and during the last Handel Festival got an enthusiastic reception in the opera production Publio Cornelio Scipione in the Goethe Theatre in Bad Lauchstädt. The highly acclaimed and versatile Spaniard has de-vised a special programme for his gala concert: from different works by Handel, he has filtered the musical “affects” of the seven deadly sins, such as pride, greed, envy, etc.Works from Handel’s Italian period can be heard in the concert en-titled “The Dream of Arcadia” by Ensemble Diderot, conducted by Jo-hannes Pramsohler and featuring the young soprano Maria Savastano on June 11, 2017, in the banqueting hall of the Leopoldina. This French ensemble has recently been tipped as a newcomer to watch, their CDs having already received numerous recommendations from critics. This musical voyage is funded by TOTAL Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland GmbH.On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Steven Sloane will be conducting an ecumenical world premiere: “The Ger-man Mass”. None other than Norbert Lammert, the President of the German Bundestag and patron of the 2014 Handel Festival, has writ-ten a new translation of the text of the ordinarium missae into Ger-man, and Stefan Heucke, who has composed a variety of operas, won the Hans Werne Henze Prize and written an oratorio entitled Nikolaus Groß, set it to music. Heralding in this exciting musical encounter as part of the Reformation anniversary will be Handel’s monumental Coronation Anthem, The King shall rejoice. The concert will take place in the Steintor on the final day of the Handel Festival as part of the “Luther 2017 – 500 Years of the Reformation” celebrations, in collab-oration with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.The Reformation anniversary is also referenced in the concert “A Lutheran in Rome” (held in cooperation with the Göttingen Interna-tional Handel Festival) on May 28, 2017. The internationally respected Concerto Romano and Alessandro Quarta will be setting off on a very special musical voyage to early eighteenth-century Rome: what reli-gious works might Handel have heard there which could have inspired his own work for the Catholic Church? The then celebrated composers of Rome’s main churches – Pietro Paolo Bencini, Pompeo Cannicciari, Francesco Foggia and Bernardo Pasquini – are today virtually un-known. The 2017 Handel Festival season also has numerous new features to offer. For example, the concert “Alleluja – Amen – Music for worship for the Marktkirche, Halle, and the Chapel Royal, London” will be held in the church of St. Bartholomew (Bartholomäuskirche). It is here that Handel’s mother was married to the barber-surgeon Georg Händel by her father, the pastor of Giebichenstein, Georg Taust, in 1683. On Whit Monday, the Polyharmonique ensemble will be playing works by 13





George Frideric Handel, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, Henry Purcell and Samuel Scheidt. A free nocturnal concert will be given for the first time in the church of St. Maurice (St. Moritzkirche). The creative mind behind the “Bridges to Classics” series, Bernd Ruf, will play the saxophone, accompanied by Franz Danksagmüller on the organ, with inputs of live electronic music. In a programme entitled “On the Bridge”, they will be combin-ing early and modern music and creating new arrangements. On May 31, 2017, an interfaith project by the Abrahamic world reli-gions will present music from Judaism, Christianity and Islam up to the Baroque period in Ulrichskirche Concert Hall. Mehmet C. Yeşilçay will be conducting the Pera Ensemble, ECHO Klassik award winners who have been rapturously received on several occasions in Halle, the Jo-hann Friedrich Reichardt Halle University Choir and Marktkantorei Halle in a concert entitled “One God”. This unique musical experi-ence is sponsored by the Federal Government Commissioner for Cul-ture and the Media. Another special concert will be given by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. On June 9, 2017, in the George Frideric Handel Hall, in a con-cert entitled “More than one Water Music”, they will perform works by George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Michel-Richard Delalande and Marin Marais. The performance, which includes the Wa-ter Music based on the Halle Handel Edition, takes as its theme the different elements of water and the moods of the sea. This dynamic and richly diverse concert is presented by Hallesche Wohnungsgesell-schaft mbH.

Festival classics and crowd-pullers

The open-air events in Galgenberg Gorge are annual classics on the Handel Festival programme. They are both spectacular events and family concerts. The “Bridges to Classics” concert and the closing concert are the stuff of atmospheric evenings against a backcloth of breathtaking natural scenery and ending with a fireworks display. Fol-lowing the sell-out “Bridges to Classics” concert in 2016 featuring Gary Brooker and Geoff Whitehorn of Procol Harum, we can look for-ward to seeing who will be appearing next year in this impressive set-ting under the musical direction of Bernd Ruf. “Bridges to Classics” on June 10, 2017, is presented by MDR Sachsen-Anhalt with the support of Stadtwerk Halle. The closing concert has taken place regularly in Galgenberg Gorge since 1952. Next year, the Johann Friedrich Reichardt University Choir Halle and the Wernigerode Radio Youth Choir will be joining Staatskapelle Halle on the stage, under the baton 14





of Jan Michael Horstmann. The closing concert traditionally ends with Handel’s Fireworks Music and a fireworks display coordinated to the music. Other musts on the festival schedule are the musical boat trips on the MS Händel and the ambulatory concert in the wonderful Botanical Gardens, which have grown into coveted events over the past few years. Besides the Festival for all the Family, younger festival visitors have another concert to look forward to. Hans im Glück oder Die Wette mit dem Teufel (“Lucky Hans or the Bet with the Devil”) is a puppet play with music by Georg Frideric Han-del (in German only). The Berlin theatre group Musitabor has already been a guest of Handel House on several occasions and its perform-ances have never failed to delighted audiences.

Building bridges between different musical genres

The 2017 Handel Festival will again be continuing cross-genre projects of past years which have grown into a tradition. In “Baroque Lounge I: Flow” in the Moritzburg on May 28, 2017, two different styles of music will meet: Baroque music and jazz. Both musical genres will be represented by specialists in their field. Axel Wolf plays the lute and theorbo and will meet Hugo Siegmeth playing the saxophone and bass clarinet. Moritzburg is the youngest castle on the Saale and one of the most impressive late-mediaeval castle sites in Central Germany. In “Baroque Lounge II: Borrowings” on June 2, 2017, the Berlin elec-tronic composer, sound researcher and DJ Johannes Malfatti will be back behind the mixing table, taking original music from the eight-eenth century and distorting it with numerous reflections, stretchings and sound experiments. Together with violinist Nadja Zwiener, he will be exploring new “sound paths”. Another musical voyage will be un-dertaken by the Sheridan Ensemble on June 8, 2017, in the third “Baroque Lounge: Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues. Meta-morphosis of a bass line over 500 years”. And yet another mu-sical excursion awaits visitors in the concert entitled “Rejazz greatly”, on June 5, 2017. Here, Handel’s Messiah meets jazz. This exciting project in St. George's Church is organised in collaboration with Women in Jazz.

Academic conference

There has been close collaboration with music research in Halle since the 1960s. The international academic conference organised jointly by the Music Institute of Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Gesellschaft e. V. and the Handel House Foundation will take place on June 6 and 7, 2017, in Handel House. Speakers from Germany, the UK and the US will discuss topics on the conference theme of “Original Genius or Plagiarist? Handel’s Composi-tional Method and Its Interpretations”. Probably more than any other 15





composer of this time, George Frideric Handel took material by other composers as the basis for his works and also used his own ma-terial several times over. Although not generally unusual at his time, this phenomenon has been the subject of great controversy since the nineteenth century. Recent research has taken a neutral approach, trying to gain an overview of the different revisions. The 2017 Interna-tional Handel Research Prize will be awarded at the start of the event. Participation in the conference is free and it is open to all those inter-ested. No prior registration is required.

Free events

Many Handel Festival visitors are “recidivists", fascinated by the city and the atmosphere during the festival period. And all of them join in and let themselves be inspired by it. On Thursday, May 25, 2017, (As-cension Day), there will be an organ recital on the Mauer organ at 7pm as part of the series of events entitled “Welcome to the Courts of Kirchentag on the Go”. The traditional start of the festival will take place on May 26, 2017, at 4pm, with the official ceremony at the Handel Memorial. That evening, or rather night, the festival continues with the 15th Organ Night. Festival services will be held in the Mark-tkirche on May 28, 2017, and in the cathedral on Whit Sunday (June 4, 2017). Hallesche Wohnungsgesellschaft mbH invites visitors to the Baroque Family Festival on Domplatz starting at 3pm on Whit Saturday, June 3, 2017. It offers a colourful programme for people of all ages. The highpoint of the event will be a programme of “Handel for Brass” per-formed by the Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie. The Festival for all the Family will once again be taking place in the courtyard of Handel House on June 10, 2017. Children will be able to try out a variety of creative activities. Once again, Kathi Rainer Thiele GmbH, one of the festival sponsors, will have baked biscuits to decor-ate. And the City of Halle children’s choir, the Kindersingakademie, conducted by Marie-Therese Goetzky, will present its new programme. There will also be free admission once again to the introductory talks on numerous concerts by Dr. Erik Dremel in the Glass Hall of Handel House.Many other free events await visitors this year too. You can find these in the programme.

NEW: Broadcasts and concert recordings at the Handel Festival

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MDR Kultur

Sunday, May 28, 2017, 4pm, Ulrichskirche Concert HallCarnevale 1729 – Gala concert with Ann Hallenberg:

Broadcast May 28, 2017, 7.30pm

Saturday, June 10, 2017, 8pm, MarktkircheMessiah HWV 56 (1743 London version)

Broadcast July 9, 2017, 8.05pm

Deutschlandradio Kultur

Whit Monday, June 5, 2017, 5pm, Bartholomäuskirche (St. Bartholomew’s Church)

Allelujah – AmenBroadcast June 5, 2017, 8.03pm

BR KlassikSaturday, June 10, 8pm

MarktkircheMessiah HWV 56 (1743 London version)

Broadcast July 18, 2017, 8.05pm

NEW: Official start of advance ticket sales for Handel in Autumn

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The Handel in Autumn festival will be taking place once again this year, from November 24-26. This mini-Handel Festival, which has its origins in the pre-festival concerts held in anticipation of the following year’s Handel Festival, is enjoying increasing popularity. The 2017 edi-tion of Handel in Autumn will open on the Friday evening at 7.30pm with a stage performance of the Handel oratorio Jephtha at the Halle Opera. This will be followed on the Saturday by a guided tour by the curators of the annual exhibition Echt oder Fake? Bei uns ist alles original! (“Genuine or Fake? Here, everything is original!”) in Handel House at 2pm, the premiere of a staged reading of Die Nachtigall des Zaren (The Tsar’s Nightingale) with arias by George Frideric Handel at 4pm at the Halle Opera, and a concert entitled Händel und seine Muse (Handel and his Muse), in which the celebrated soprano Raffaella Mil-anesi will present works by G. F. Handel and D. M. Scarabelli in the Chamber Music Room of Handel House at 6pm. On Sunday, November 26, Martina Rüping and the Baroccore Berlin ensemble will be performing in the Franckesche Stiftungen (Freyling-hausensaal room). Entitled Die güldene Sonne (The Golden Sun), the programme includes works by S. Scheidt, F. W. Zachow, G. F. Handel und hymns from the Freylinghausen Gesangsbuch. The festival will come to a climactic close at 4pm with the gala concert featuring Nuria Rial and Valer Sabadus entitled Geistliche Duette. Das Oratorium zur Zeit Händels (Sacred Duets. Oratorio at the Time of Handel) in Ul-richskirche Concert Hall. They will be accompanied by Kammer-orchester Basel conducted by Julia Schröder. Audiences can look for-ward to works by G. B. Bononcini, A. Scarlatti, A. Caldara and G. F. Handel.

Advance ticket sales for Handel in Autumn start with the opening of the Handel Festival. Tickets can be purchased from the Handel Fest-ival Visitors’ Office at Grosse Nikolaistrasse 5, 01608 Halle, and from all the usual advance ticket booking agencies (advance booking charges may apply).

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Handel Prize winner 2017

The 2017 “City of Halle Handel Prize, awarded by the Handel House Foundation” goes to the US mezzo-soprano, Vivica Genaux. The Board of Trustees unanimously adopted the Handel House Founda-tion’s nomination. Vivica Genaux can be heard in the gala concert on June 5, 2017 (Whit Monday) in Halle Cathedral.

ECHO Klassik award winner Vivica Genaux was born in Fairbanks in the US state of Alaska. She is lauded for her beautiful and unmistak-able voice, charming character portrayals and extraordinary perform-ances and ranks among the world’s leading interpreters of Baroque music and bel canto. Vivica Genaux is a welcome guest at interna-tional opera houses, including the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and the state operas in Munich, Hamburg and Vienna, and has also appeared at renowned festivals, for example in Prague, San Remo, Antibes, Ravello and at the Salzburg Whitsun Fest-ival. She interprets the roles in George Frideric Handel’s operas with heart and soul. She has a rich repertoire of Handel’s works and has enchanted audiences in Alcina, Ariodante, Arminio, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Rinaldo and Semele. Her roles are diverse – ranging from fear-less generals, young men and disguised, lovesick girls through to god-desses. This charming mezzo-soprano has also appeared at the Halle Handel Festival, receiving storms of applause from the audience. At the 2016 Handel in Autumn festival, she will make a joint appearance with Sunhae Im. But she can also look back at a slew of studio CD re-cordings with leading international ensembles. She has also been nominated for Grammy awards for two recordings. During the 20 years and more of her career, she has received the Pittsburgh Opera’s Maecenas Award, the New York City Opera's Christopher Keene Award, the Premio “Opera CD Classics – Città di Mondovi” and the ARIA award.

The Advisory Council of the Handel House Foundation recommended that its Board of Trustees present the award to Vivica Genaux, a singer of international renown who also has links to Handel and the Handel Festival. “The chosen winner is the American mezzo-soprano, Vivica Genaux, an artist who is at the pinnacle of her career and who since 2011 has on several occasions given impressive and triumphant concerts at the Handel Festival which bore the stamp of her very spe-cial timbre and huge stage presence. In 2011 in an interview in the Handel Festival magazine, she very clearly and insistently spoke of her love for Handel and for the city of the composer's birth. She will be a guest singer at Handel in Autumn in November 2016. She has re-leased a number of highly regarded recordings of Handel’s music and performs all over the world to triumphant acclaim.” (Citation from the 19





recommendation of the Handel House Foundation Advisory Coun-cil)

Further information is available at: http://www.vivicagenaux.com/.

NEW: 300 years of Water Music

Handel’s Water Music was first performed in 1717 on the Thames on a barge trip by King George I of England. This kind of pleasure trip was a welcome opportunity for the king to show himself the people. On July 17, 1717 – exactly 300 years ago – the king embarked at Whitehall and travelled three miles upstream to Chelsea. The Prussian envoy Friedrich Bonet reported to King Frederick William I in Berlin: “Next to the King’s barge were the approximately fifty musicians who played all manner of instruments, namely trumpets, French horns, oboes, bassoons, transverse flutes, violins and double basses”. With it, Han-del had delivered an elegant and cheerful piece of music for outdoors to the king. The latter is said to have been so impressed by the music that he had himself rowed up and down three times so as to hear it again. Handel’s music congenially combines elements of the Italian concerto grosso with highly expressive French dance forms, but along-side the minuet, rigaudon and bourrée some local colour is also to be found in the shape of the hornpipe, the English national dance. No ori-ginal sources by Handel himself have come down to us; exactly what music so delighted the king we do not know. The order of the 22 movements therefore varies from performance to performance. In the concert on June 9, 2017, at 7.30pm in George Frideric Handel Hall, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin will act in line with the latest state of research and perform the movements in what is presumed to be the original order according to the earliest available sources.

NEW: The Hooters frontman Eric Bazilian at Bridges to Classics

Eric Bazilian is one of the founding members and the face of the le-gendary US rock band The Hooters. They made their international breakthrough at the legendary Live Aid Festival in Philadelphia in 1985. From the outset, Eric Bazilian was responsible for the songwrit-ing and characteristic sound of The Hooters. Their classic hits such as All You Zombies and Johnny B were penned by him. He had already played with other groups by the time The Hooters were founded in 1980. They had their first hits with All you Zombies and Hanging on a Heartbeat. Their next album, Nervous Night, in 1985

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http://www.vivicagenaux.com/





earned them double platinum status in the US alone; further al-bums and chart-toppers made them an international success. Now performing either with his fellow musicians or as a solo artist, Eric Bazilian is also a much sought-after songwriter and producer who works with names such as Bon Jovi, Cindy Lauper and Robbie Williams. On June 10, concertgoers can look forward to hearing some global hits by and with Eric Bazilian, as well as Staatskapelle Halle conducted by Bernd Ruf. This creative musician works as a saxophonist, conductor and university lecturer and this year will be conducting the concert for the thirteenth time. One of the most imaginative musicians in the field of classical crossover, in 2016 he won the Golden Melody Award in the Best Album category. This “symphonic rock” concert, presented by MDR Sachsen-Anhalt with the financial support of Stadtwerken Halle GmbH, traditionally takes place against the atmospheric natural back-cloth of the Galgenberg Gorge in Halle and closes with a sumptuous fireworks display.

Handel House during the Handel Festival

Handel House

Große Nikolaistraße 5, 06108 Halle (Saale)Phone +49 (0) 345 / 500 90 [email protected] / www.haendelhaus.de

Special opening times during the 2017 Handel Festival: Daily from 10am to 7pm

Permanent exhibitions:Handel – The EuropeanHistorical Musical InstrumentsSpecial exhibitions: Echt oder Fake? Bei uns ist alles original! (“Genuine or Fake? Here, everything is original!”)Duration: Feb. 23, 2017 to Jan. 10, 2018Curated by: Dr. Konstanze Musketa, Christiane BarthIn collaboration with sichtbar - zeitgenössische Kunst e. V. (Rebekka Rauschhardt and Björn Hermann).

Special guided tour of Handel House

June 2 and 9, 2017, 3pm Ι Handel House, Sound Workshop and Ex-hibition of Period Musical InstrumentsAuf der Suche nach dem originalen Klang (“In search of the original sound”)A guided tour of the musical instrument exhibition with demonstra-tions of selected period keyboard instruments. Special guided tour by Christiane Barth, director of the Handel House Foundation Museum * (in German only)

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June 6, 2017, 5.30pm | Handel House, Museum ticket deskBei uns ist alles original – oder doch alles nur geklaut? (“Everything here is original – or maybe all just stolen?”)Guide: Dr. Konstanze Musketa (curator of the annual exhibition) * (in German only)

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach House

Große Klausstraße 12 (entrance on Hallorenring), 06108 Halle (Saale)Special opening times during the 2017 Handel Festival: Friday to Sunday: 10am - 6pm

Permanent exhibition: Musikstadt Halle (“Halle, the City of Mu-sic”)May 27, 2017, 11am | Wilhelm Friedemann Bach HouseLasset uns den Herren preisen (“Let us praise the Lord”) The history of Protestant church music in HalleSpecial guided tour by Dr. Konstanze Musketa * (in German only)

* Tickets: €7, number of participants limited, reservation possible up to 15 minutes before start on 0345 500 90 103, [email protected]

Handel Festival 2017: Facts and Figures

Dates: May 26 - June 11, 2017Fee-paying events: 54Total number of events: over 100Venues: 24

Regional venues:3 permanent venues:

- Goethe Theatre, Bad Lauchstädt- Carl Maria von Weber Theatre, Bernburg- Castle chapel of St. Trinitatis, Weissenfels

4 excursion venues- Eisleben- Mansfeld- Merseburg- Weissenfels

New venues: 4- Church of St. Bartholomew (Bartholomäuskirche) - Moritzburg Art Museum, Halle- Steintor Halle - Castle chapel of St. Trinitatis in Weissenfels

Opera and ballet: 7 - Terpsicore HWV 8b (ballet, fully staged performance)- Sosarme, Re di Media HWV 30 (opera, revival)

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- Giustino HWV 37 (opera, puppet theatre)- Acis and Galatea HWV 49a (masque, puppet theatre)- Aci, Galatea e Polifemo HWV 72 (Serenata a tre, con-

certante performance, Naples version of 1708)- L’Elpidia, overo li rivali generosi HWV A1 (opera pastic-

cio, concertante performance)

Oratorio & Passion: 5- Esther HWV 50b

- Deborah HWV 51- Messiah HWV 56 (Dublin version)- Messiah HWV 56 (1743 London version)- Jephtha HWV 70 (new production)- Passion: St. John Passion

Performances based on the Halle Handel Edition in the original language with German supertitles 6

- Sosarme, Re di Media HWV 30 - Acis and Galatea HWV 49a

- Esther HWV 50b

- Jephtha HWV 70 - Aci, Galatea e Polifemo HWV 72- Watermusic HWV 348-350

Patrons and sponsors

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Documents

Halle (Saale), 19€¦ · Web viewSpecial guided tour of Handel House. June 2 and 9, 2017, 3pm Ι Handel House, Sound Workshop and Exhibition of Period Musical Instruments. Auf