Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) was born and grew up in Halle, Germany. At age 18, he moved to Hamburg, where he got a job playing several instruments in the opera orchestra. When he was 21, he went to Italy, where he spent over three years composing, performing in concerts and Read More …
In January 2023, the Frankfurt Opera mounted a new production of Orlando (HWV 31) by Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759). Orlando is one of three Händel operas based on episodes from Ludovico Ariosto’s verse epic Orlando furioso, the other two being Ariodante and Alcina. Ariosto’s long poem was first published in Read More …
Here the soloists, chorus members and conductor at the Frankfurt Opera are taking their bows at the end of a staged performance of Hercules, by Georg Friedrich Händel, in 2023. (That’s a statue of Hercules in the background.) In the HWV-catalogue of Händel’s works (HWV = Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis in German), Hercules has the number HWV Read More …
These people are waiting to enter the St. Marien-Kirche (Saint Mary’s Church) in Göttingen, Germany, to attend a choral concert by the Athens Chamber Choir. The orange truck on the right is a sound truck from the North German Radio (NDR), a public radio station that recorded the concert for Read More …
Semele by Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) was the featured Festival Opera, fully staged, at the Göttingen International Händel Festival in 2023 — even though by the composer’s definition it was not an opera at all, but rather just a “Story” told “after the Manner of an Oratorio.” The text of Read More …
Ottone, Re di Germania (Otto, King of Germany) was Händel’s fifteenth opera, composed in 1722 and first performed on January 12, 1723 by the Royal Academy of Music at the King’s Theatre Haymarket in London. I saw it three centuries later, in March 2023, as part of the 45th International Read More …
The Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) is one of the world’s busiest opera houses, with 350 performances per year. When I was there, in the last week of October 2016, they put on five performances of three different operas. I went to all three of these. There were two evenings Read More …
This barn-like structure in the Frankfurt district of Bockenheim, near the old university campus, served for many decades as a depot for streetcars. I can remember when the whole place was full of tracks, and they drove the streetcars in at night when they weren’t being used. Now the tracks Read More …
When I think of Berlin I think of opera and construction sites — and here I was lucky enough to get both in the same photo, because they happened to be ripping up the street “Unter den Linden” right in front of the State Opera House (Staatsoper) when I was Read More …
The film museum has its own cinema, the “Black Box”, and four floors of exhibit space with displays of the history and aura of the movies. For example: “Film and Politics” is an exhibit on the third floor in between “Film and Money” and “Myths of the Present”. In the Read More …