Handel in Manchester

Journey around the world as imagined by Handel through a selection of arias from his operas and oratorios.

Handel’s deft musical touch gave his audiences tantalising glimpses of the cut and thrust of human life (and the occasional deity) or the taste of spices and wine from distant lands.  

Handel’s travels defined the course of his career. His youth was spent travelling in Germany and Italy, where his early operas were produced, before eventually settling in London where he achieved commercial success and became a national icon. In his operas and oratorios he conjured places even further afield and from the past; from the rolling fields of Lombardy to mystical India, mythical Greece to fabled Babylon.

The arias selected by Ian Bostridge are interspersed with instrumental pieces by Handel and Georg Muffat.