Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques through Handel’s Semele in Paris… and tonight in London!

Last week, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques performed Handel’s Semele in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. Tonight, they will be singing (and conducting!) Handel’s drama at the Barbican in London.

Below are some extracts from the Arts Desk review of the concert in Paris… and we hope other great reviews will come up after tonight’s performance!

“one of the most impressive Handel casts I've heard for years”

“With the emergence of this snaky, sexy, sequenced, Enlightenment glam rocker whose glistening red tails and bizarre cavorting mirrored perfectly the slinky bejewelled duplets on oboe and strings that Rousset was conjuring up, the whole production took off.”

“Peter Rose's incredibly solid, fabulously old-school interventions as a stentorian Cadmus and comically sleepy Somnus, reminded one how important a good bass is to the working of a Handel opera - and how rarely we hear one of this calibre.”

“Danielle de Niese's Semele should have been the star turn. And in many ways she was. In terms of coloratura, control and word-setting, she shone. And her voice is bigger, stronger than I have ever heard it.”

By Igor Toronyi-Lalic

You can read the full article here.