Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel, composed in 1711, and was the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill, and the work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket on 24 February 1711. The story of love, war and redemption, set at the time of the First Crusade, is loosely based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata, and its staging involved many original and vivid effects. It was a great success with the public, despite negative reactions from literary critics hostile to the contemporary trend towards Italian entertainment in English theatres.
Nicola (Antonio) Porpora was an Italian composer and teacher of singing of the Baroque era, whose most famous singing students were the castrati Farinelli and Caffarelli. Other students included composers Matteo Capranica and Joseph Haydn.
Giovanni Bononcini was an Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer and teacher, one of a family of string players and composers.
Agrippina is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the 1709–10 Venice Carnevale season, the opera tells the story of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an "anti-heroic satirical comedy", full of topical political allusions. Some analysts believe that it reflects Grimani's political and diplomatic rivalry with Pope Clement XI.
Atalanta is a pastoral opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel composed in 1736. It is based upon the mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto being derived from the book La Caccia in Etolia by Belisario Valeriani. The identity of the librettist is not known.
Acis and Galatea is a musical work by George Frideric Handel with an English text by John Gay. The work has been variously described as a serenata, a masque, a pastoral or pastoral opera, a "little opera", an entertainment and by the New Grove Dictionary of Music as an oratorio. The work was originally devised as a one-act masque which premiered in 1718.
Giove in Argo is an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel. It is one of Handel's three pasticcio works made up of music and arias from his previous operas. The libretto was written by Antonio Maria Lucchini. The opera was first performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, London, on 1 May 1739.
Margherita Durastanti was an Italian singer of the 18th century. Vocally, she is best described as a soprano, though later in her career her tessitura descended to that of a mezzo-soprano. First heard of professionally in Mantua in 1700–01, she later appeared in Bologna and Reggio Emilia (1710), Milan and Reggio (1713) and Florence (1715). Today she is particularly remembered for her association with the composer George Frideric Handel: indeed she enjoyed a longer personal association with the composer than any other musician.
Valeriano Pellegrini was an Italian soprano castrato singer of the 18th century. He is largely remembered today for his association with the composer George Frideric Handel, whom he sang for in Italy and then later followed to London. He sang the role of Nero in Handel's opera Agrippina at the work's initial run in Venice, a part which demanded a high level of technical skill.
Max Emanuel Cenčić is a Croatian countertenor, currently based in Austria. He was a member of the Wiener Sängerknaben.
The Triumph of Time and Truth is the final name of an oratorio by George Frideric Handel produced in three different versions across fifty years of the composer’s career:
Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno, Cantata a tre, subtitled Cor fedele in vano speri, is a 1707 comic cantata by George Frideric Handel. The subject is a pretty shepherdess who loves two young men, but loses both when they discover her fickleness. Believed lost for many years, the score is the source of arias in some of Handel's later, more celebrated operas.
Ero e Leandro, also known after its first line as Qual ti reveggio, oh Dio, is a 1707 Italian-language cantata by George Frideric Handel, composed during his stay in Rome to a libretto believed to be written by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. It is a reworking of the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, with the soprano soloist taking the role of Hero. In it, Hero finds her love, Leander, drowned, tears out her hair, thus symbolically rejecting the beauty which had led to Leander's fascination with her, then drowns herself. It is composed for a soprano solo, and a small orchestra consisting of two oboes, and two string sections: a concertino of solo violin and violoncello, and a concerto grosso made up of two violins, a viola, and continuo. In Ero e Leandro, Recitatives alternate with arias, as was normal at the period for not only cantatas, but oratorios and operas as well; however, unusually, Ero e Leandro ends with a recitative, instead of an aria.
Franco Fagioli is an Argentinian operatic countertenor.
Parnasso in festa, per li sponsali di Teti e Peleo, by George Frideric Handel, is a festa teatrale, a form also called a "serenata", a type of Italian opera intended as entertainment to celebrate a festive royal or state occasion. The work was written to celebrate the marriage of Anne, Princess Royal and Prince William of Orange. Parnasso in festa had its first performance in London at the King's Theatre on 13 March 1734 and was repeated five times. The operatic entertainment, to an anonymous libretto, was such a success at its London premiere that although it was intended as a one-off production for a royal wedding, Parnasso in festa was revived by Handel in several subsequent seasons.
Agrippina condotta a morire or Dunque sarà pur vero, HWV110, is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano, two violins and continuo, composed by Georg Frideric Handel while he was in Italy, at some time between 1707 - 08. The anonymous text depicts Roman empress Agrippina the Younger on the way to her execution, which was ordered by her son, the emperor Nero, whom she had schemed to put on the throne. The title of the cantata, which is approximately fifteen minutes in length, may be translated as "Agrippina condemned to die".
In 1703, the 18-year-old composer George Frideric Handel took up residence in Hamburg, Germany, where he remained until 1706. During this period he composed four operas, only the first of which, Almira, has survived more or less intact. Of the other three, the music for Nero is lost, while only short orchestral excerpts from Florindo and Daphne survive.
Dilyara Idrisova is a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist, specialising in soprano and coloratura mezzo-soprano material of the 18th and 19th century. She studied with Milyausha Murtazina and Galina Pisarenko.
Il Pomo d'Oro is a prize-winning orchestra founded in 2012 and named after the opera Il pomo d'oro by Antonio Cesti. The ensemble specialises in authentic performance of music from the Baroque and Classical period which it performs and records led by its own lead violinists Federico Guglielmo and Zefira Valova, or by guest conductors including Maxim Emelyanychev, it:Riccardo Minasi, Stefano Montanari, George Petrou, de:Enrico Onofri, nl:Francesco Corti, and the Stradella specialist Andrea De Carlo.
Ottaviano Tenerani is an Italian keyboard player, conductor, musicologist. He is the leader of Il Rossignolo, an ensemble on period instruments that he founded in 1998 together with the flautist Marica Testi and the recorder and oboe player Martino Noferi.
