Since June, when our double bill of Caldara’s The Card Game and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas was so enthusiastically received during the Berkeley Festival & Exhibition, we have some good news to report. 

Our autumn performance at 2:30 on October 20 will be a special occasion indeed: we thank Mr. Handel for graciously ceding his usual place on the program in order to honor Arnold Schoenberg during his sesquicentennial year, with the first performance of a new version of his early post-romantic song cycle, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (The book of the hanging gardens). Handel Opera Project founder William Ludtke has arranged these brief settings of poems by Stefan George for chamber orchestra, bringing into sharp focus the intricately woven texture with which Schoenberg undergirds George’s deeply erotic poetry. Celebrated contralto Sara Couden will bring these songs to life.

There follows Ralph Vaughan Williams’s much-loved Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis for double string orchestra and string quartet. In a first for the Handel Opera Project, the 40+ strings of the Oakland Civic Orchestra, conducted by Martha Stoddard, will fill the splendid acoustic of Bernard Maybeck’s architectural masterpiece with Vaughan Williams’s rich and spacious tribute to the sixteenth-century master.

The performance concludes with the premiere of William Ludtke’s own Job, a powerful chamber opera setting of one of the cornerstone works of the Western tradition. Olivia Freidenreich, who directed The card game, returns as stage director for this drama of timeless questions.

The mission of The Handel Opera Project is to present the works of G.F. Handel (and a wide array of other composers), thoughtfully edited to bring these works to a wider audience for greater accessibility. The Handel Opera Project aims to encourage greater interest in early opera and opera of the Baroque period. 

The Handel Opera Project performs at the historic Maybeck church at 2619 Dwight Way in Berkeley, California.          

The Berkeley Daily Planet praised The Handel Opera Project's performance of Médée by writing that "the fire-breathing title role was splendidly sung by Eliza O’Malley... To her immense credit, Eliza O’Malley gave a very fine performance, both musically and dramatically, of this enormously difficult role. In the Berkeley cast, Ms. O’Malley was joined by a fine tenor, Brian Thorsett, who sang the role of Jason; soprano Sara Hagenbuch, who sang the role of Jason’s new fiancée, Dircé; baritone Martin Bell, who brought a calm strength to Créon, Dircé’s father and king of Corinth; and contralto Kathleen Moss, who was excellent as Néris, the worried confidante of Médée’s schemes for revenge. Stage director Kimberly James made good use of the limited space available to her..." 
 

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