Claudia Huckle

AAM: Handel Serse

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Serse
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Barbican Hall, 19 June 2026

Perhaps one day somebody will compose an opera about a magalomaniac world leader wreaking havoc on the state of Persia (aka Iran), while constructing vast self-promotional construction projects at home. If so, that might trump the storyline of Handel’s Serse, an opera based on the antics of Xerxes I, the successor of Darius the Great of the Achaemenid Empire, first performed in London in April 1738. Xerxes was depicted in Aeschylus’ play The Persians, first performed in 472 BCE, shortly after Xerxes ill-fated invasion of Greece. The play presents him as an effeminate figure whose “hubristic effort to bring both Asia and Europe under his control leads to the ruin of both himself and his kingdom”. Later commentators describe him as “a power-crazed despot, inept, ridiculous, self-serving, self-loving, narcissistic ruler of the free world, with claims to be a god-king”.

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Classical Opera @ 20

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Classical Opera 20th Birthday Concert
Orchestra and Choir of The Mozartists, Ian Page
The Barbican. 9 October 2017

Classical Opera was founded in 1997 and has carved out an important place in the musical world for its exploration of music of the classical era, in particular, Mozart. He is the inspiration for their ambitious Mozart 250 project, a chronological exploration of Mozart’s life, works and influences that each year will explore the music of Mozart and his contemporaries exactly 250 years previously. Now joined by a companion branding as The Mozartists, their name for increasing concert, rather than opera work, they celebrated their 20th birthday with a spectacular concert in London’s Barbican. The opening sequence of pieces, interspersed with reading, focussed on themes of “birth and rebirth, compassion and forgiveness, human inspiration and . . . what Beethoven and Schiller called brotherhood”.  Continue reading →