With four
professional soloists, we are delighted to be performing Handel’s setting of a
libretto based on John Dryden’s ode, Alexander’s Feast or The Power
of Love.
Composed in 1736
and premiered at Covent Garden Theatre, London, this magnificent piece describes
a banquet held by Alexander the Great in the captured Persian city of
Persepolis. Encouraged by his
mistress, Thais, and the singing of the Greek army’s resident musician,
Timotheus, an increasingly intoxicated Alexander and his guests set about burning
down the city in order to avenge the Greek soldiers killed in battle with the
Persians.
