Zaïs, the fairy-story opera, now published in the complete edition of Rameau’s works “Opera Omnia Rameau”, is characterized by daring musical experiments and the theme of freemasonry.

New gems are constantly emerging from the large output of works by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The latest volumes of the Complete Edition are devoted to music theatre at court and church music for the sun king Louis XIV.

The Handel Festival Halle continued its outstanding series of first performances using newly-published volumes in the Complete Edition with three major vocal works this year: the first of these was the opera Ottone on 3 June (Marcus Creed / Franziska Severin), followed on 7 June by the seldom-performed Occasional Oratorio (MDR Radio Choir and The English Concert, conducted by Howard Arman). The crowning conclusion was Handel’s last oratorio Jephtha on 12 June, also performed the following day at the Göttingen Handel Festival (Salzburg Bach Choir and Handel Festival Orchestra, conducted by Bernhard Forck).

Bild links: Coronation of the Emperor Otto II. and his wife Theophanu, ca. 980

La Resurrezione, a true work of genius by the twenty-three year old Handel, was performed for the first time on 8 April 1708 in the Marchese Ruspoli’s palace in Rome. Prominent singers, such as Margherita Durastanti in the role of Maria Magdalena, took part in the performance, with the orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli. The first performance using the newly-published volume in the Halle Handel Edition (edited by Terence Best) also has a star-studded cast. Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducts his Concentus Musicus and an illustrious team of singers (including Christine Schäfer and Toby Spence) in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein on 12 and 13 March, then on 10 April in Lucerne.

Zurich Opera presents a masterpiece of the comic opera repertoire in the New Year, Gioachino Rossini’s Le comte Ory. The role of the Countess will be sung by star mezzo Cecilia Bartoli. In this new production (first performance: 23 January 2011) the recently-published critical edition by the French musicologist Damien Colas will be heard for the first time. In it, the original version of this opera has been reconstructed with the help of the original performance material. As a result, several numbers differ considerably from the version currently in use and enable us to recognize the references to Il viaggio a Reims more clearly than previously.  A milestone in our understanding of Rossini.

George Frideric Handel composed the large-scale secular serenata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo for a ducal wedding in Naples in July 1708. The libretto is based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and is about the love between the sea nymph Galatea and the shepherd Acis, who is destroyed by the Cyclops Polyphemus. This early masterwork will be presented for the first time using the Halle Handel Edition in a performance given by René Jacobs and the Akademie für Alte Musik in the Schiller-Theater, Berlin on 5 and 6 February.

The Hannover-Herrenhausen Arts Festival is offering a real operatic rarity on 26 June with Francesco Cavalli’s dramma per musica  L'Artemisia, first performed in Venice in 1657. For the first performance in modern times, Cavalli specialist Hendrik Schulze has prepared a critical edition which Claudio Cavina and his ensemble La Venexiana use in their interpretation. A further performance is planned for 24 July at the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, which will be followed by a CD recording. The full score and performance material of L’Artemisia are published by Bärenreiter in their new series “Opere di Francesco Cavalli”.