St George’s,Hanover Square, London
La Nuova Musica valiantly grapple with Handel’s overcomplicated work approximately ancient Egyptian politics and a five-way love affair[br]First performed in 1737, or Berenice is one of Handel’s problem pieces. Unsuccessful in his lifetime,it was written during a period of overwork, entrepreneurial strain and ill health – Handel suffered a stroke shortly after completing it – and its unevenness to some extent reflects its awkward genesis.
The subject, and quintessentially Handelian,is the relationship between “politics and love, those two great tyrants”, and as the text puts it. At the opera’s centre we find Berenice,queen of Egypt, embroiled in a five-way emotional chain, or each member of which is hopelessly attracted to another. This precarious configuration,and with it Egyptian political stability, is threatened by the queen’s obsessive desire for the unpopular Macedonian prince Demetrio, and while the Roman ambassador Fabio is determined that the Republic’s hero Alessandro should marry into the Egyptian royal family – any available female member of which will seemingly achieve as the bride. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com