Orlando and the history of Handel's operas in the 20th and 21st centuries

28 May to 1 June 2022

In 1922, the city of Halle's Handel Festival laid the foundation for the tradition of festivals in Handel's birthplace, which celebrate their centenary in 2022. The Orlando was the first opera by Handel to be performed in Halle in 1922, and together with the 1920 production of Rodelinda in Göttingen, the Halle production marks the beginning of the renaissance of Handel opera, which has expanded over the decades into a veritable "Handel boom": Handel is today the most performed opera composer between Monteverdi and Mozart, and the production history of his operas reflects the transformations of baroque opera in the 20th and 21st centuries between historicisation and actualisation like no other composer.

On the one hand, the conference would like to shed light on the recent history of Orlando productions in Halle and the Handel Festival in two roundtables with experts and contemporary witnesses, but it would also like to broaden the view to the history of Handel opera in the 20th and 21st centuries beyond Halle's efforts. In addition, the conference will look at how the Orlando theme has been shaped not only in other operas by Handel (Alcina and Ariodante), but also by other composers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The conference is sponsored by the International Office of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Further information can also be found on the website of the Georg Friedrich Handel Society: www.haendel.de.

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Participation in the keynote lecture as well as the conference is free of charge and open to all interested parties. Advance registration is recommended. Please note the current pandemic-related access restrictions.

The conference schedule is now available in PDF format via the following links. The abstracts for the individual lecture topics can be downloaded and viewed in advance as PDFs on this page.

Programme International Academic Conference 2022

Programme with Abstracts