Paris abandons Messiah
NewsThe Théâtre du Châtelet has cancelled this month’s 10-day run of Handel’s Messiah, staged by Deborah Warner, due to raging Covid infections.
The theatre said: ‘More than 200 people, artists and staff, are directly involved every day in this show. The current risks are too high for us to be able to accommodate a production of this magnitude.’
The soloists were to have been Anna Devin, Christine Rice, Allan Clayton and Christopher Purves. The conductor was Stefano Montanari.
Christopher Purves is probably my favorite bass-baritone in Handel. In his recording with Emmanuelle Haïm, he ornaments down to a low B (yes, that one) and up to a high A with no sign of difficulty. Is it in good taste? Questionable, but since when is baroque ornamentation supposed to be in good taste?