We left at the interval...

Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Tuesday March 1 2022 Conductor: Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Production: Floris Visser. Sets and Costumes: Gideon Davey. Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth. Hercules: Brandon Cedel. Dejanira: Ann Hallenberg. Iole: Lauren Lodge-Campbell. Hyllus: Moritz Kallenberg. Lichas: James Hall. Händel Festival Choir. German Händel Soloists. Production photos: Falk von Traubenberg For various reasons to do with the production, acoustics and casting, Hercules at Karlsruhe's 44th International Händel Festival turned out to be a frustrating experience.   Not that the production is weak. On the contrary, it's logical and thought-through, detailed and carefully rehearsed - almost as much a directorial tour de force as Jonathan Kent's Fairy Queen . The action starts during the overture with Dejanira in a strait-jacket in her bedroom, grasping at constellations mapped out on the walls, as if searching for her late husband. It alternates between flashbacks and courtroom scen...

Opéra National de Paris – Garnier, December 6 2004 Conductor: William Christie. Production: Luc Bondy. Hercules: William Shimell. Dejanira: Joyce DiDonato. Hyllus: Toby Spence. Iole: Ingela Bohlin. Lichas: Malena Ernman. Priest of Jupiter: Simon Kirkbride. Orchestra and Chorus of Les Arts Florissants. Händel Having heard that the first part (acts 1 and 2) of this production lasted 2 hours 15 minutes, I had asked, on the web, if it was fair on the audience. As it turned out, my fears for my bottom were unfounded. It’s a credit to both Händel and William Christie that an almost 4-hour evening of da capo arias should have sped by without a moment’s boredom. I’ve sometimes complained that Christie’s performances of Rameau were, to me, too “feathery” or “fluffy.” There was little of that here. Apart from occasional prolonged passages of virtuoso piano or pianissimo playing, in a sense a mannerism, this was Händel at his best, full of nuance, invention and – as Christie pointed o...