Händel’s ‘Agrippina’ opens Barcelona Liceu opera theatre’s season

Barcelona (ACN).- Barcelona’s famous Opera House ‘Gran Teatre del Liceu’ is launching its 2013-2014 season with Händel’s first great opera ‘Agrippina’, with David McVicar as Stage Director and Baroque specialist Harry Bicket as Musical Director. The opera cast is led by British mezzo soprano Susan Connolly, Australian-born American soprano Danielle de Niese and American countertenor David Daniels. This contemporary staging of Händel’s opera will be performed for the very first time at Barcelona’s Liceu, over 300 years after it premiered at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice, on the 26^th of December 1709. The Barcelona audience can rediscover this opera in 3 acts on the 16^th, the 18^th, the 21^st, the 24^th, the 26^th and the 29^th of November.

‘Agrippina’, according to the Liceu Opera House, is “a funny satire depicting the various tools to reach and exercise powers, such as sex, corruption, revenge, and manipulation”. While this new staging is respectful of Georg Friedrich Händel’s original work, its aesthetics are more contemporary, thereby giving the opera a more modern feel and making it more relatable.  

‘Agrippina’ has been co-produced by the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), the Théâtre des Champs Elysees (Paris) and the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu.