Fresh from battle, Hercules returns home victorious, but Dejanira is consumed by a jealousy that sets off a tragic chain of events. With Handel’s soaring arias, inventive chromaticism, and powerful choruses, this opera reminds us that mistrust can bring even the mightiest to their knees. Thomas Broughton’s libretto draws from Ovid and Sophocles, with the chorus commenting on events as they unfold like a Greek tragedy. Harry Bicket and The English Concert tour the US, in collaboration once again with the scintillating Clarion Choir directed by Steven Fox.

EPSG:4326

Handel’s Hercules

University of California, Berkeley

Orpheum Theatre

Carnegie Hall

Britain’s extraordinary early-music ensemble visits with another exquisite concert performance of a Handel masterwork in what has become an eagerly anticipated highlight of each Cal Performances season.

The English Concert

Cal Performances

A celebration of the work of three members of the Restoration Chapel Royal: Pelham Humfrey, John Blow and their younger contemporary Henry Purcell. Humfrey’s verse anthem ‘Lift up your heads’, a rousing setting of verses from Psalm 24, and Blow’s stately ‘I was glad’ for choir, strings and trumpets set the scene for Purcell’s peerless ode to music’s patron saint.

Music of the Restoration Chapel Royal with Amy Carson, Alexander Chance, and Anthony Gregory

Wigmore Hall

Well this is becoming a very welcome habit! Fresh from his appearance back in October, Kristian Bezuidenhout returns to Gateshead, this time conducting Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Handel's Messiah

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

One of the best oratorios ever written, the glorious experience of hearing Handel’s Messiah never fails to create impact. Performed by the Orchestra, guest soloists and Codetta, if you haven’t yet included it in your festive programme, then now is the time.

Handel’s Messiah

Waterfront Hall

Guildhall Derry

Rinaldo’s triumphant premiere in 1711, replete with dramatic stage effects (including live birds), placed Handel at the forefront of the London opera scene. This concert performance brings the music and libretto of Rinaldo to life in one of Malta’s stunning baroque buildings.

Rinaldo (Handel in Malta)

Teatru Manoel

The legend goes that during the London premiere of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, King George II stood up at the opening of the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, thus obligating the rest of the audience to do the same. Whether he was emotionally moved, needed to stretch his legs (or, in fact, was even in attendance at all), is debated to this day, but the tradition of standing remains. Tonight’s annual performance of the work features a quartet of celebrated international soloists, flanked by the forces of the Hallé Choir.

Messiah

The Bridgewater Hall

Under the masterful baton of John Butt, a cast of stellar soloists and the Hallé Choir combine in this timeless musical representation of the life and death of Christ.

The legend goes that during the London premiere of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, King George II stood up at the opening of the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, thus obligating the rest of the audience to do the same. Whether he was emotionally moved, needed to stretch his legs (or, in fact, was even in attendance at all), is debated to this day, but the tradition of standing remains. Tonight’s annual performance of the work features a quartet of celebrated international soloists, flanked by the forces of the Hallé Choir.

The Hallé - Messiah

Nobody does Bach quite like the Bach Collegium Japan. The ensemble makes a welcome return to the Proms for the composer’s concentrated depiction of Christ’s arrest, rendition and execution – the St John Passion. Probing, unsettling, dramatic and beautiful, Bach’s work is known as much for its optimism as for its turbulence, its final bars appearing to invite all of us to imagine a brighter future.

Prom 40: Bach’s St John Passion

Royal Albert Hall

Masaaki Suzuki will conduct his acclaimed his vision of the work, performed according to Bach’s partbooks, with solo singers stepping out of the choir. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists will be integrated with the most brilliant members of a new generation of Bach singers. 

To experience a performance of the St Matthew Passion is to participate in something larger than a concert. For Bach and his congregation, this music formed part of a shared act of devotion, a way of understanding and engaging with the central message of Christianity. But the generosity of Bach’s musical imagination allows the music to resonate beyond its original context with an extraordinary humanity, bringing solace and inspiration to performers and listeners, whatever our beliefs.

Bach’s earlier musical version of the Passion of Christ, the St John, was already extravagant and ambitious by the standards of the time.  The St Matthew, composed for Leipzig in 1727, goes even further, with two choruses and two orchestras, sometimes in dialogue, sometimes in ferocious opposition, sometimes in exultant unity. Bach illuminates the complex structure of the piece with amazing inventiveness, varying the instrumentation and musical structures, interweaving the ancient chorales of his Lutheran forebears through the biblical narrative and the reflective poetry of his collaborator Picander.

“A dream cantata date for Japanese maestro and local supergroup…Here was choral and instrumental Bach performed not just with meticulous professionalism but a dash and verve that filled each movement with an infectious enthusiasm.”

Bach: St Matthew Passion

University of Michigan

University of Georgia Performing Arts Center

Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Princeton University

The Pennsylvania State University

Dinis Sousa conducts the combined forces of the Monteverdi Choir and Royal Northern Sinfonia in a performance of Bach's legendary St Matthew Passion, 300 years after it was first performed.

Alexander Chance

Events

Upcoming events

9 - 23 Feb, 2027

Bach: St Matthew Passion · Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Mar 7, 2027

Bach: St Matthew Passion - Royal Northern Sinfonia · Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Past events

8 - 15 Mar, 2026

Handel’s Hercules · The English Concert

Mar 8, 2026

The English Concert · Cal Performances

Future and recently performed repertoire

Eustazio in Rinaldo by Handel

The English Concert

Singer in Messiah by Handel

Royal Northern Sinfonia

Singer in Three Parts upon a Ground by Purcell

The English Concert

Singer in St Matthew Passion by Bach

Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras

Lichas in Hercules by Handel

The English Concert

Singer in Lift up your heads by Humfrey

The English Concert

Singer in Hail! Bright Cecilia by Purcell

The English Concert

Singer in I was glad by Blow

The English Concert

About

Alexander Chance hasn't added a bio