Florian Amort over the Handel Festival Halle | EUROtoday

Seit dem 1. April ist Florian Amort neuer Intendant der Händelfestspiele Halle und Direktor des dortigen Händelhauses. Zur Eröffnung der Festspiele 2025 am 6. Juni zeigt die Oper Halle Georg Friedrich Händels „Agrippina“, Reinhard Keisers „Octavia“ feiert am darauffolgenden Tag im historischen Goethe-Theater Bad Lauchstädt Premiere. Zu dieser Konstellation unterhielten wir uns vorab.

Was hat Reinhard Keisers „Octavia“ bei den Händelfestspielen zu suchen?

More than you think. Luxurious operated opera with eleven soloists and five bassoons. It also stands for a piece of common history of the two Saxons. They met in Hamburg in 1703. The just eighteen -year -old Handel gained first stage experiences at the opera at the Gänsemarkt as a violinist and harpsichordist, which the much older Keiser headed. In response to Handel’s second opera, which was lost today, “The love achieved by blood and murder, or: nero” in 1705, Keiser was apparently challenged by his protegé – and composed his “Octavia” as a solution. When Handel traveled to Italy shortly afterwards, he had a replica of the “Octavia” in his baggage, in response to an anecdote. In his “Agrippina”, which was premiered in Venice in 1709, truly a hanging variety of musical bonds from precisely this work – a complete of six arias, generally adopted virtually actually. The music historian Friedrich Chrysander, editor of the primary Handel-Kutcheiten, due to this fact took up “Octavia” as a complement band. What may end in authorized penalties immediately was frequent follow on the time – on the identical time a captivating instance of baroque composition tradition.

So Handel used it – was he musically a kleptomaniac?

That sounds very sharp. Today we shortly communicate of Plagiat – a judgment within the context of recent copyright. The composition follow on the time was one other, as a substitute one may communicate of intertextuality with out analysis: Handel didn’t merely write off together with his mentor and competitor Keiser, however took on passages, edited and newly contextualized. It was not at all times about originality in immediately’s which means, however about impact, efficiency follow and artistry. Handel has acquired the music – as a artistic technique, but additionally as an indication of self -assertion, to exceed the mannequin. And he was not the one one: Mozart carried out the G main KV 444 symphony in Vienna below his personal name-actually a piece by Michael Haydn, solely supplemented by a sluggish introduction. Rossini didn’t make his works seem in his lifetime, for worry that you’d see how typically he had recycled himself. In this mild, Handel’s dealing with of Keizer’s music is nearly a praise. And who knows-maybe some concepts even initially come from Handel himself, from the lacking “Nero” rating.

Will the viewers in Halle discover these references between “Octavia” and “Agrippina” by themselves, or would that be a significant case for “assisted hearing”?

Probably the latter. The two works are intensive, the musical quotes are sometimes artistically woven. Anyone who is aware of “Agrippina” very well will acknowledge some issues in “Octavia” – however this stays hidden with out earlier information. There shouldn’t be even a recording of the “Octavia”. I’m all of the extra grateful that the MDR and Deutschlandfunk document our manufacturing – so we will make the parallels audible for a wider viewers afterwards.

The 2025 competition motto is “Fresh wind: The young Handel in Italy”. Was Handel the contemporary wind for Italy – or was Italy the contemporary wind for Handel?

Both. Handel got here to Italy as a younger man, however not at all as a clean leaf. What has been handed down from Rome reveals a extremely gifted, self -confident composer who triggered a stir together with his organ play, his look and his works within the highest social circles. He was now not a pupil, however knowledgeable musician with a transparent inventive profile. At the identical time, Rome was a musical treasury. Handel met the composer Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro Scarlatti and Antonio Caldara, discovered from the Catholic church music, from the Roman oratorium as a alternative for the opera banned there by papal decree and got here into contact with the massive sponsors of his time: cardinals, princes, patrons. Rome formed Handel – artistically, strategic, stylistically. The contemporary wind blew in each instructions.