Senesino News
Italian castrato (1686-1758)
- contralto
- opera
- Grand Duchy of Tuscany
- opera singer, stage actor
Last update
2024-03-28
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2023-09-17 09:22:00
Polite pastoral: Handel's Tolomeo from Baroque Encounter
Handel: Tolomeo; Carmen Lasok, Glenn Kesby, Lucy Thomas, John Lofthouse, director: Christopher Tudor, conductor: Asako Ogawa; Baroque Encounter at St John's Smith SquareReviewed 16 September 2023A production given in period style that never quite managed to break out of the decorative pastoral entertainment and demonstrate the underlying drama of Handel's operaPremiered in 1728, Handel's Tolomeo was the last opera he would write for the great triumvirate of singers, castrato Senesino and sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. Handel would revive it in the 1730s, but its modern performance history is rather sparse. English Touring Opera did it in 2006 (revived 2009, see my review) and its best claim to fame, rather bizarrely, is that composer Arthur Somervell adapted on of the arias from the opera as the song Silent Worship.The opera made a welcome return to the London stage when Baroque Encounter performed it at St John's Smith Square on Saturday 16 September […]
2023-09-10 16:29:00
Extravagantly theatrical: Handel's Flavio revived by Bayreuth Baroque in the splendour of the 18th-century theatre
Handel: Flavio - Rémy Brès-Feuillet (in bath), Yuriy Mynenko - Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival (Photo: Clemens Manser)Handel: Flavio; Julia Lezhneva, Max Emanuel Cencic, Monika Jägerová, Yuriy Mynenko, Rémy Brès Feuillet, director: Max Emanuel Cencic, Concerto Köln, conductor Benjamin Bayl; Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival at the Margravial Opera House, BayreuthReviewed 9 September 2023An undeserved Handel rarity in a lavish production highlighting the historical background and managing to combine comic and serious Having revived a real rarity in Vinci's Alessandro nell'Indie in 2022 [see my review], the 2023 Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival opened with, if not a rarity, a work from the Handelian fringes. Handel wrote Flavio for the end of the 1722/23 season, a season that had included the premiere of Handel's Ottone and the sensational London debut of soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. Flavio, which starred Cuzzoni alongside castrato Senesino, received eight performances, and was revived by Handel in 1732. Then it was […]
2022-06-13 08:41:20
Baroque mind games: Handel's Tamerlano at The Grange Festival
[…] the way life continued despite Bajazet, Asteria and Andronico's sufferings. And even the way Pe's Tamerlano and Lyddon's Irene ate shed light on character. More importantly, the throne room scene (the lonest sequence of recitative that Handel wrote) was simply gripping theatre, holding you until the glorious ending. For much of the first half (Acts One and Two without an interval) the opera might have been called Andronico. That role was written for star castrato Senesino and received a series of wide ranging arias, here finely sung by Patrick Terry. But from the first notes of the throne room scene, Nilon's Bajazet took command, and rightly Paul Nilon drove the drama through to the end. Tamerlano is an odd character. Handel's music for him hardly provides opportunities for the sort of viciousness that the role in Vivaldi's Bajazet (an alternative take on the same plot) does. Raffaele Pe brilliantly brought out […]
2022-04-12 07:08:30
Historical stagecraft & modern sensibilities: a powerful Tamerlano from Cambridge Handel Opera Company
[…] Andronico (Thalie Knights) finally admits that he is Tamerlano's rival for her affections. Yet throughout, Laing gave us a sense of the constant and unpredictable danger lurking underneath. In the opera, Tamerlano's music is surprisingly non-psychotic, and Laing made sense of this, giving dramatic shape to the character and dazzling us with some vivid coloratura and vivid, yet stylish, ornaments. Technically, Andronico is the star of the opera. The role was written for star castrato Senesino (the title role was sung by the more junior Andrea Pacini and he got four arias to Senesino's six), and at the end he gets the girl. But, Oh, he is such a drip. None of the drama would happen if only he said something to Tamerlano in the first act. But Thalie Knights definitely wasn't a drip; she had a way of being solid and centred on stage which, in the opening scenes, […]
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