Are you having ‘Dinner with Handel’?

  Have you ever dined with a composer? This February you will get an opportunity of a lifetime as we put on the North American Premiere: Dinner with Handel.
  What is for dinner, you may ask? Why a ‘pasticcio’ of course. Pasticcio is Italian for a kind of pie — a layered delight, if you will — but in musical terms refers to a popular Baroque practice of mixing music from varied composers and reworking them into a new piece.
  For Dinner with Handel, PBO’s new Artistic Director Julian Perkins deftly weaves together arias from Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell, Arne, and Pepusch and award-winning British Journalist Stephen Pettitt adds witty text for a must-see chamber opera receiving only its second staging ever.
“I’ve always admired the Baroque pasticcio as an art form. It allows composers and librettists the room to tell fresh stories and introduce people to work they may have never given a chance,” said Perkins. “I am not aware of any other early music group reviving the pasticcio like we are. I do hope we spark its return with our latest interpretation.”
  This semi-staged delicacy dares ask, ‘‘What would dinner with Handel really be like?’’ Set in the London home of the notoriously mercurial Handel, the action revolves around an uncomfortably intimate surprise dinner party thrown by Handel’s cook, the singer Gustavus Waltz. This uncomfortably intimate dinner party features conversation and confrontations between Handel, rival composer Johann Christoph Pepusch, spurned diva Francesca Cuzzoni, singer and cook Gustavus Waltz, and Handel’s dear friend, Mary Pendarves. This 90-minute jewel is fast-moving, funny, and touching, exploring Handel’s complex personality through carefully researched references to real events.
  These two performances will feature soloist, Daniel Moody (countertenor) as Handel. Moody has been lauded for his “profoundly startling vocal resonance” (The New York Times) and “sweet and melancholy sound” (The Washington Post). A highly sought-after Handelian countertenor, that has performed with the Atlanta Opera and Vancouver Opera.
  Abi Levis (mezzo-soprano) brings her “terrific tonal and textual sensitivity” (Opera News) and excels in a variety of musical styles. Levis has appeared as a soloist with the Toronto Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and the Handel and Haydn Society.
  Local soloist Arwen Myers (soprano), known for her “crystalline tone and delicate passagework” (San Francisco Chronicle), has also performed Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Early Music Vancouver, and Indianapolis Early Music Festival.
  Kenneth Overton (baritone) is a 2020 Grammy Award Winner for Best Choral Performance in the title role of Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua and this season will reprise his role in Porgy and Bess as Porgy, with Opera Carolina and North Carolina Opera.
  And Aaron Sheehan (tenor) rounds out the soloist lineup. He is recognized internationally as a leading interpreter of baroque repertoire and for his “sinuous and supple” voice (Opera Music). Sheehan has performed concerts at the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston Baroque, and the Handel and Haydn Society.

Get your tickets to have dinner with Handel today!