In most years—and this one was no exception—my favorite concert of the year is the appearance at Carnegie Hall of Harry Bicket and his English Concert, performing yet another Handel opera or oratorio. Last Sunday it was Rodelinda, which happens to be one of the operas I play on my devices all the time. And it turns out that I can even stream a 2021 English Concert version these days, featuring at least two of the stars, Lucy Crowe and Iestyn Davies, who appeared in this December’s Carnegie concert.
But there is absolutely no comparison between listening to this reduced version at home and hearing the real thing, live, at Carnegie Hall. Part of the enhancement is visual: although these are concert versions rather than fully staged operas, the singers (under Harry Bicket’s direction, I presume) do their best to take on the characters and gestures of their parts. A touch on the arm here, an embrace there, an angry or wistful or regretful expression—these are enough to give life to the figures of Rodelinda and her husband Bertarido, the usurping king Grimoaldo and his evil advisor Garibaldo, the loyal servant Unulfo and the strangely mixed figure of Eduige. It’s also fun to watch the musicians themselves: the two harpsichords facing each other (one manned by Harry Bicket himself), the four terrific wind-instrument players in the back row, the huge theorbo up front, and all the other talented and essential strings. For an opera company, it is a relatively small group of instrumentalists and singers, but they pack a wallop far beyond their size.
Of course, the main benefit of hearing it live is auditory, and Carnegie Hall is the perfect setting for that. This was clear to all of us the minute the overture was over. To hear Lucy Crowe’s pearly soprano beam out across the seats and upward through the successive balconies—a gem of a voice, with perfect diction and occasional moments of wild expressiveness, never pushed too hard, never unmusical—was a delight of the first order. And to hear it in combination with Iestyn Davies’ golden countertenor (which we finally got to do at the end of the second act: Handel always makes us wait for a combination of voices) was to hear both singers at their very best. Bicket always gets good people for the solo parts, but in this instance he exceeded even his usual brief, for there was not a singer onstage who was less than stellar. The other countertenor, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, was tender and delicately rich. The bass-baritone, Brandon Cedel, had that rare deep voice that could hit all the notes perfectly and boom out loudly (and he had a lovely semi-comic manner as well, which suited his role as the truth-telling bad guy in the plot). Eric Ferring carried his heavy tenor role with dignity and grace. And Christine Rice was a wonderful Eduige, her mellow mezzo-soprano placing her midway between the high-voiced heroic characters and the lower-voiced villains.
But just as you can’t get a true sense of any opera from a mere recording, my mere assertion of how great this performance was cannot begin to duplicate for you the actual experience of being there. So I have just one piece of advice. If you are anywhere near Carnegie Hall next time the English Concert and Co. come around with one of their Handel operas, do yourself a favor and buy a ticket. You will thank me, and more to the point, you will thank them for the deep, irreplaceable, long-lasting pleasure.