Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. In 1738, the statue of Handel as Orpheus, now in the V&A, was unveiled at Vauxhall’s Spring Gardens in London.

Timothy Nelson, a gradute of Peabody conservatory, forged his opera-directing career in Baltimore as founder and head of American Opera Theater (2001-2008). After pursuing a career overseas in London ...

Always there is the claim that opera directors need to “breathe new life” into classic works through updatings and reinterpretations. But as the last 50 years of such events have shown, the life ...

Period instrument ensemble Figure’s semi-staging of an abridged version of Serse was full of good ideas and strong singing This was the first opera from the new period-instrument ensemble Figure, and ...

Exciting historical performance ensemble Figure will bring a fresh and intimate semi-staged performance of Handel's Serse to London's Opera Holland Park this June. The recently established group aims ...

Serse (Xerxes) is unique among Handel's operas: fluid, often comic, fast-moving, deconstructing the conventions of serious opera with its interrupted arias. It needs a special light touch, and ...

Fagioli, though, is something else again. The full-spectrum tantrum of his final aria (“Crude furie degli 'orridi abissi”) became a quite spectacular hissy-fit. It climbed in a trice from ...

Performances in N.Y.C. Advertisement Supported by Critic’s Pick The English Concert’s performance at Carnegie Hall showed off the ensemble’s elastic responsiveness. By Oussama Zahr If you eat up ...

Serse, 'Xerxes', Movements: Se bramate d'amar, chi vi sdegna Harry Bicket, Conductor Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Mezzo soprano George Frideric Handel, Composer Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Serse ...

This 1738 opera shows the composer at his most mischievous – and this performance at St Martin-in-the-Fields was splendidly done With its airy spaces and lively acoustic, James Gibbs’s 1720s church at ...