Singer

With the fifth new production of Handel’s Agrippina in the history of Halle Opera, two world stars will be making their first appearance at the Handel Festival on the Saale: the British conductor Laurence Cummings, formerly director of the Handel Festivals in London and Göttingen and today music director at the Academy of Ancient Music London, and the Serbian scenic designer Aleksandar Denić, known for his powerful graphic creations for Emir Kusturica and Frank Castorf. Together with Walter Sutcliffe, they are creating a vibrant new perspective on Handel’s youthful work. Romelia Lichtenstein leads an international cast of prominent guest singers and ensemble members. This melodious comedy of oversized egos in a dysfunctional First Family gave the 24-year-old composer his breakthrough. It shows a society driven by greed for power, vanity, cunning and stupidity in a complex plot with numerous, fortuitous reversals of situation.

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Agrippina

The Opera Halle

A quirky comedy of oversized egos in a dysfunctional first family brought the 24-year-old Handel his breakthrough in the Italian opera scene, and thus in the world. Sparkling melodies and hair-raising turf wars made him "everybody's darling" in the "Las Vegas" of the 18th century – Venice was then Europe's number one entertainment capital. His nickname "Il caro Sassone – Our dear Saxon" came about with "Agrippina." “In every second without music, clapping and shouts of ‘Viva il caro Sassone – Long live the dear Saxon!’ and other expressions of applause, too exaggerated to quote here, shook the theater,” reported John Mainwaring. “Everyone was astonished by the grandeur and sublimity of his style, for until then no one here had heard anything remotely resembling such powerful harmonies and such dense modulations, combined in such a magical way.”

Halle Opera House

The story of the opera begins with an introduction by La Musica, music itself: Claudio Monteverdi opens his version of the ancient love story of Orfeo and Eurydice, the singer whose voice could even melt death, with the prologue. Conductor Leonardo García Alarcón has this epochal work firmly in his repertoire with his Cappella Mediterranea, which specializes in early music, and says: "If life, death, love, and music are the driving forces of humanity, then L'Orfeo is perhaps the opera that best embodies them."

Countertenor

Leandro Marziotte

Events

Upcoming events

Feb 20 - Jun 13, 2026

Agrippina · Staatskapelle Halle

Apr 28, 2026

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo / Leonardo García Alarcón · Elbphilharmonie

Past events

6 - 15 Jun, 2025

Agrippina · Händel-Festspiele Halle

Future and recently performed repertoire

Nerone in Agrippina by Handel

Händel-Festspiele Halle

About

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