Terry Wey Nel Dolce Tempo by Händel, Forqueray, A., Johann Friedrich Daube, Marais, M., Van (2024/2024), Schlosskirche Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Duitsland

Before George Frideric Handel celebrated his breakthrough as an opera composer in 1709 with the first performance of his Agrippina in Venice, he toured the Italian peninsula for several years in order to study in the mother country of opera himself. Here his talent was both challenged as well as promoted by the most important personages in society, politics and the Church – including the influential Medicis and the Roman Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. The young Handel had to keep coming up with musical contributions for private soirées, and, since opera performances were prohibited in the church state, while in Rome Handel produced a number of secular cantatas: tender preliminary studies for the great opera seria, which in their emotional intensity reach far beyond the conventions of the genre. The American-Swiss counter tenor Terry Wey is equally renowned for his virtuosic vocal acrobatics as for the authenticity of his interpretations. In this recital he devotes himself to the cantata production of the young Handel that fell into oblivion for such a long time. Together with the lutenist Luca Piancy and the gambist Vittorio Ghielmi, he explores the emotional depths and astonishing maturity of Handel’s Italian early work.