Handel heaven as five operas are staged over five nights

This has undoubtedly been Handel's year, but is a five-day Handelfest in the UK just a case of Baroque going bonkers? asks ARMINTA WALLACE

THIS has been a bumper year for fans of Handel opera. Not such a surprise, you might think; after all, 2009 is the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. But who would have guessed that the celebrations worldwide would have been dominated, not by Handel's ubiquitous religious music such as Messiahbut by his Italian stage works?

In Ireland we've been graced with a Handel trilogy thanks to Opera Theatre Company's touring productions of Xerxes, Acisand Galateaand – coming up from October 16 – Alcina. In the UK Handel has been staged at Glyndebourne, the Edinburgh Festival, Covent Garden, English National Opera, the South Bank and the Barbican, while in a mammoth radio series, BBC Radio 3 has been broadcasting all 40 of Handel's operas throughout the year.

Even by these enviable standards, English Touring Opera's forthcoming Handelfest is well, frankly, it's Handel heaven. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in one of England's most attractive towns – Exeter, say, with its glorious cathedral, or Cambridge with those glamorous colleges. Every day there are talks, masterclasses and lunchtime recitals as well as a host of local attractions to explore. And every night, for five nights in a row, there's a fully-staged production of a different Handel opera: Flavio, Teseo, Tolomeo, Alcinaand Ariodante.

Yes, you did read that correctly. Five Handel operas on five consecutive nights. The Britten Theatre at the Royal College of Music in London has six nights, with two showings of Flavio. Malvern, Exeter and Cambridge get the full five, while Bath and Snape Maltings get two shows each.

This year sees English Touring Opera celebrate its 30th anniversary. Even so, is this a case of baroque going bonkers? “It’s kind of a mad thing to do, there is no doubt,” agrees James Conway, general director of English Touring Opera. “It’s a chance to see something you won’t see anywhere in Europe – even at Göttingen, or Halle, or any of the established Handel festivals.”

As many readers will doubtless remember, Conway was the guy who was mad enough to bring Handel opera to Ireland during his time at the helm of Opera Theatre Company. It was a time when at least one commentator noted that "the plain people of Ireland do not like the da capoaria". As it turned out, however, the plain people of Ireland flocked to Conway's gorgeous, cheeky productions. The current OTC trilogy is proof that we still love Handel's operas. But few people love them enough to stage five of them at once, surely? "Well, I'm very passionate about them as dramas," Conway says. "People look at the form, and it's unfamiliar, and they think, 'Oh, hell, we'll send it up'. But if you take Handel seriously, you find he's a subtle, interesting dramatist and a profound psychologist."

Planning the festival turned out to be an intricate jigsaw puzzle as he struggled to work out which singers could take on two roles and cover a third – saving money for the company as well as giving employment to the singers – while also providing a generous programme of ancillary events.

“We have period instrument players giving masterclasses to local amateur players and singers,” he says. “For our lectures, we wanted to see how we could mix up people like Ruth Rendell, who’s an enthusiast not a specialist, with someone like James Bowman, who has made a career out of Handel.”

The list of those involved reads like a "who's who in Handel circles": Charles Mackerras, Ann Murray, Della Jones, Philip Langridge. The American countertenor Derek Lee Ragin will sing the role of Egeo in Teseo. Meanwhile, the English countertenor who recreated many of the highly virtuosic castrato roles on stages throughout Ireland, Jonathan Peter Kenny, will be conducting Flavioas well as singing Polinesso in Ariodante.

For all this, you might think, you’ll pay a hefty fortune. Not so. Three operas at Malvern costs £45, with masterclasses costing £5. Some talks are free, others cost £2. “Ah, Malvern,” says Conway fondly. “It’s got associations with Elgar as well as Handel. You can go to Elgar’s house. The hillwalking is terrific, and October is a lovely time of year there because there are a lot of deciduous trees. It’s got one of the most interesting bookshops in the UK. It’s also got a nascent opera group – people who are interested in opera and who have formed an association with us. I go regularly and give talks there, and other people do too, and we’re planning to organise recitals for them.”

In the context of the major shake-up planned for opera in Ireland over the coming months, is there a lesson here for Irish touring opera projects?

“There are some very testing times ahead, because opera can’t cost much less,” says Conway. “At the same time, working in opera, I would say that one can become quite rigid. I hope people in Ireland will be passionate enough to grab whatever changes come, and turn them into opportunities. That has always been the challenge.”

One way or another he hopes Irish operagoers will make their way to some of the Handelfest productions. “They’re not the same productions that I did at OTC, but I imagine the people who liked those would recognise the style,” he says. “I don’t want to see cynicism or cleverness on stage, or anything that suggests it’s going to be made fun of. I guess they would recognise that all right.”

Handelfest runs Oct 15-Nov 21; www.englishtouringopera.org.uk

Opera Theatre Co's Irish tour of Alcina starts Oct 16 in Navan; www.opera.ie