Description

Farao Classics: Handel — Xerxes / Serse (3 CD Set)

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Product Details:

Product Type: Audio CD (3-disc set)
Brand / Label: Farao Classics (Live series)
Composer: Georg Friedrich Händel (George Frideric Handel)
Work: Xerxes / Serse, HWV 40 — opera in three acts (complete recording)
Orchestra: Das Bayerische Staatsorchester (Bavarian State Orchestra)
Choir: Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper (Choir of the Bavarian State Opera)
Conductor: Ivor Bolton
Catalogue Number: B 108010
UPC / EAN: 4025438080109
Release Year: 1997
Genre: Classical / Baroque Opera

Product Features

Format: CD
Discs: 3
Total runtime: 2:51:53 (Disc 1: 69:00 / Disc 2: 63:30 / Disc 3: 40:23)
Sound: Stereo, Digital (DDD)
Recording: Live, Münchner Nationaltheater (Munich National Theatre)
Made in: Germany
Language sung: Italian

Overview

Handel's Serse is the opera that opens with a love song to a tree. "Ombra mai fù" — the famous Largo — is sung not to a person but to the shade of a plane tree, and it sets the tone for one of Handel's most peculiar and most human works: a comedy of mismatched lovers wrapped around the figure of a Persian king who keeps falling for the wrong woman.

This is the complete three-act opera, caught live at the Munich National Theatre. Ann Murray sings the title role with Christopher Robson as Arsamene, Yvonne Kenny as Romilda and Julie Kaufmann as Atalanta — a cast that leans into both the lyricism and the wit. Ivor Bolton conducts the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Choir of the Bavarian State Opera, bringing period sensibility to a great modern house.

Serse flopped at its 1738 premiere and vanished for two centuries; today it is among Handel's best-loved stage works, precisely because it refuses to behave like serious opera. The Farao Classics set documents a live Munich account in clean digital sound across three discs.

Interesting Facts

The opera's opening aria, "Ombra mai fù," is one of the most famous melodies Handel ever wrote, often performed on its own as "Handel's Largo."
Serse was a commercial failure at its London premiere in 1738 and was not staged again until the 20th century, when it became one of Handel's most frequently revived operas.
Unusually for an opera seria of its time, Serse mixes comic and serious elements freely — closer in spirit to comedy than to the formal heroic operas Handel usually wrote.
The title role of the Persian king Xerxes was originally written for a soprano castrato; here it is sung by mezzo-soprano Ann Murray, a celebrated Handelian.
This is a live recording from the Munich National Theatre, home of the Bavarian State Opera, conducted by Ivor Bolton during his tenure as a leading interpreter of Handel and Mozart there.