France – Accademia Bizantina at Festival d’Opéra Baroque de Beaune
Ottavio Dantone and Accademia Bizantina have been well-known and appreciated guests of the Beaune International Baroque Music Festival for several years.
The Festival, which was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, proposes in this 31st edition some of the operas and recitals of the previous programme, among which Händel’s The Triumph of Time and Disillusion performed by Accademia Bizantina, now scheduled on July 31, 09:00 pm, in the Notre-Dame Basilica.
It is Händel’s first oratorio, composed at the age of 22, on a libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. He composed this oratorio in Rome in 1707 but repeatedly revised and reworked it during half a century, producing several versions between 1737 and 1757, just two years before his death.
“Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno is really in the balance between an opera, or rather a serenate, and an oratorio", conductor and artistic director Ottavio Dantone underlines. "The four personified allegories are perfectly characterized, also as regards music. Beauty has a light-heartedness, a will to live nourished by the promises of Pleasure, but Time and Disillusion remind her that beauty can fade, there are more important aspects, and we must therefore think about the salvation of our soul”.
So, the oratorio HWV 46a by Händel requires awareness of human frailty while the libretto and the music give extraordinary emotional richness to the path of Beauty –and of the audience. Impressions that Accademia Bizantina – selected by Gramophone among the “Orchestra of the Year Award 2021” nominees – can certainly give back.
Festival International d’Opéra Baroque et Romantique de Beaune