Christophe Rousset

Marie Lys

Iestyn Davies

Alice Coote

John Chest

Hugo Hymas

English Baroque Soloists

Monteverdi Choir

Following a triumphant debut with the Monteverdi Choir in December 2024, celebrated French baroque specialist Christophe Rousset brings his dramatic flair to Handel’s thrilling oratorio this Christmas.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists have been performing historically-informed Handel for almost 50 years, and are “unbeatable in the performance of this repertoire” (Scherzo). A stellar cast of soloists will join “the best choir in the world” (Trouw), bringing MCO’s trademark immediacy and drama to Handel’s festive masterpiece for the first time in over three decades.

Handel: Messiah

Église Saint-Roch

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Teatro alla Scala

Auditorium Parco della Musica

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists perform Bach’s masterpiece with Olivier Award winner Peter Whelan.

The crowning glory of Bach's first Leipzig cantata cycle, his revolutionary St John Passion changed the course of liturgical music history, stamping his interpretation of the gospel in his largest-scale work to date.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists have shaped modern audiences' understanding of this music for over 60 years with vivid and compelling performances. Baroque specialist Peter Whelan returns to direct the ensembles, after a critically-acclaimed debut with them in 2024.

Bach: St John Passion

Palau de la Música Catalana

Müpa Budapest

An immersive production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, conducted by Jonathan Sells and directed by Andrew Staples.

The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists present Purcell’s operatic masterpiece, with the Cutty Sark as a stunning backdrop. A cast of leading soloists bring this drama – based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid – to life as never before.

With the hull of the historic ship looming over the narrative like a spectre of the Trojan fleet, the production will incorporate Purcell’s Funeral Sentences, written for the funeral of Queen Mary who founded the Royal Hospital for Seamen, on the site of the present Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

Cutty Sark

Handel's great oratorio is one of the most celebrated choral works of the 18th century. A radical vision of faith and freedom.

London in 1750: rocked by earthquakes, and stunned by the 65-year-old Handel’s penultimate oratorio. The adopted Englishman had abandoned his tried-and-tested Old Testament formula for a work set in Christian times, and ending not with triumph and fanfare, but the minor-key death of hero and heroine.

The 18th-century audience shunned Theodora, but 225 years later this story of devotion and martyrdom is firmly recognised as a masterpiece, containing some of Handel’s greatest arias (‘As with rosy steps the morn’; ‘With darkness deep’; ´Angels ever bright and fair’), and choruses which range from the rollicking to the pious to the anguished.

The Monteverdi Choir is amongst the world’s greatest exponents of Handel oratorio, and Theodora requires the choir’s whole expressive spectrum, stretching from the piety of oppressed Christians, to the orgiastic revels of Roman pagans. Continuing our exploration of Handel oratorio in ‘staged’ concert performances, Christophe Rousset conducts the Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, bringing his trademark operatic panache to this transcendental work. They are joined by an international cast of soloists, each of them acclaimed for their thrilling performances of Handel.

Handel: Theodora

Schwarzman Centre

Theodora