©Benjamin Ealovega
©Benjamin Ealovega
Helen Charlston mezzo-soprano, Magdalena Loth-Hill, Gabriella Jones violins, Elitsa Bogdanova viola, Jonathan Byers cello, Jonatan Bougt theorbo, Satoko Doi-Luck harpsichord
George Friderich Handel: Arias from Giulio Cesare and other operas
Henry Purcell: The cares of lovers, I love and I must
Claudio Monteverdi: Si dolce tormento
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Quel prix de mon amour (Médée)
Programme Notes (also available free at concert)
Three hundred years ago this year Handel's Giulio Cesare had its premiere at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket. This programme showcases arias from that work and from other Handel operas and oratorios spanning the whole of his career, from the 1711 Rinaldo to Jephtha, written in 1750, just a few years before his death.
The arias Helen will be singing, including works by three earlier composers, focus on love in its many forms. Full of emotion, they run the whole gamut - from love’s initial hope and sweetness, through the joy of overcoming a rival, the price of submitting to love, and finally its blissful restoration.
Winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Vocal Awards, Helen Charlston won first prize in the 2018 London Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the 2019 Grange Festival International Singing Competition. In 2021 she won the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Awards and has been a BBC New Generation Artist. Helen was a founder participant of the Rising Star of the Enlightenment programme, working alongside the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; a member of Les Arts Florissants’ Young Artist Programme (Jardin des Voix) for 2021/22; and is a 2018 City Music Foundation Artist.
This year Helen returns to join Les Arts Florissants, singing the title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at The Royal Opera of Versailles and will perform the role of the Sorceress in the same opera for Grange Festival Opera.
“Throughout Charlston showed an ability to combined vividness of expression with musicality, using her dark-hued voice to great effect.” Planet Hugill - London Festival of Baroque Music
“It also demonstrated the impressive range of Charlston’s voice, with a fabulously rich timbre in her mid-to-low range, a clear and focussed upper range and a lovely, slightly husky (in a good way) low register…” Andrew Benson-Wilson: Early Music Reviews
Fri 4 Oct 2024 8.00pm
Little Missenden Church
£28, £20, £11
Online booking is managed by TicketSource. This event may be booked from the Tickets link on this page but, when booking for multiple events, it may be more convenient to use our Little Missenden Festival page on TicketSource.