ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Radio: Italian Opera Once Rage

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30535, 2 September 1964, Page 8

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Radio: Italian Opera Once Rage

Handel ranks as a great opera composer but his works are sadly neglected today. Although most of his 4C Italian operas were composed for London performances and in spite of a steady succession of revivals only a few are performed in Britain today. The operas contain a wealth of expressive melody and are worth exploration. They were written when Italian opera was the rage in London and when highly-paid Italian singers—bel canto sopranos and castrati—dominated the musical stage. Handel set the pace in composition, producing operas at a rate that not even the Italian composers could match. Harold C. Schonberg describes Handel as “a big man and a lusty one; a naturalised British subject who could

never handle the language; a man with an explosive temper; an impresario who made and lost fortunes; the owner of a good art collection, including some Rembrandt paintings; a generous man who gave heartily to charity; one of the greatest organists of his day (only Bach was his equal), and one of the greatest clavierists (matched only by Bach and Scarlatti); a composer of genius; a cosmopolite (as opposed to 'Bach the provincial); a man with a simple, uncomplicated faith and an equally simple view towards life.” Handel’s operas suffered the same decline as others of the early eighteenth century. The formal telling of stories from classical history or mythology by long static arias linked by recitative went out of fashion. There were no longer singers to meet the demands of the role. Handel’s status as a composer suffered badly with the late-

nineteenth-century Bach revival. , ~ . The second work which Handel composed for Covent Garden, “Altana,” is to be broadcast from 3YC on Sunday evening. It is about toe enchantress Altana who loses her magical powers when she falls in love with Ruggiero, a man she has ensnared on her lotus-land island. The title role is sung by Joan Sutheriand, today’s leading exponent of toe decorated singing of toe bel-canto style. The heroic role, written for a castrate, is sung by the mezzo-soprano, Teresa Berganza. New Records The Spanish guitarist, Andres Segovia, toe Bulgarian bass, Boris Christoff, and the French soprano, Regine Crespdn, are artists who can be heard in Brian Salkeld’s I. programme, “Introducing New Records,” from the YA’s on

Sunday afternoon. Segovia will play a transcription of “Cotwoiaitton," a Mendelssohn “Song without words,” Christoff wiM sing the aria, “Mentre Gonfiairsa," in the title role of Verdi’s “Attila." and Crespin will sing Elsa's Dream (“Etosana in truben") from Wagner's “Lohengrin." Early Cinema Sounds and memories of toe early movies—toe animated pictures, the bioscope and toe electric theatre—can be heard in “Flashback" from 3YC on Saturday evening. The tales of the silent cinema are told by some of the men and women who belonged to it; among them are famous stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin (telling how he progressed "better and quicker” without • script), and Gloria Swanson, Colonel A. C. Bromhead, who ran Britain’s first permanent cinema, and the producers, Adolph Zuker and Erich von Stroheim.