richard.lorber@gmx.de – Total Baroque Magazine

Articles by richard.lorber@gmx.de

Richard Lorber a été, jusqu’en 2025, rédacteur en chef chargé de l’opéra et de la musique ancienne à la WDR/ARD, TV régionale publique allemande et directeur artistique des « Tage Alter Musik » à Herne. Il travaille désormais comme journaliste musical et dramaturge pour divers médias.

From the Archives to the Stage

How can a forgotten Baroque opera be brought back to life? From sources that are sometimes incomplete to rehearsals, from cuts to the continuo part to the voices on stage, every revival requires a series of musicological and artistic decisions. Between the rediscovered score and the living performance, it is often necessary to reconstruct, adapt, transmit a style, and reinvent the very conditions of performance, without betraying the work’s dramatic balance or losing today’s audience.

Feature

Baroque opera today (1/3)

Germany 1920: Handel Rediscovered

Having long triumphed on European stages, Baroque opera almost entirely disappeared during the 19th century, before re-emerging in the 20th from the libraries where its manuscripts had lain dormant. From forgotten heritage, it has become, in the 21st century, a space for artistic creation. A look back at this revival in three parts. First stop: Germany, with the gradual rediscovery of Handel from the 1920s onwards, centred on the Göttingen Handel Festival, often presented for this reason as the oldest Baroque music festival in the world.

by richard.lorber@gmx.de 9 July 2026

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