When the young Handel was working on his Agrippina, which is to be performed this year at Halle Opera, he also lifted whole sections from the score of Octavia by his former superior in Hamburg, Reinhard Keiser – here, for the first time, you have the opportunity of comparing the two works. One point of interest is that the two title characters are the mother and first wife of the Roman emperor, Nero, who won legendary status as a persecutor of Christians, untalented musician and arsonist. In Keiser’s opera, Octavia, who is being urged by her husband Nero to commit suicide, uses cunning to save her life. On the advice of the philosopher Seneca, she appears to Nero as her own ghost and succeeds in making him relent.

Raimund Orfeo Voigt

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7 - 9 Jun, 2025

Octavia · Händel-Festspiele Halle

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