Heroines

Great stories, great feelings, people and society are reflected in our heroines and heroes. In a rich programme of Baroque opera excerpts, B’Rock Orchestra, together with the ideal partner in pleasure soprano Jeanine de Bique and our Vocal Consort, explores what we can learn from our legends. How can we deal with loss, with intense joy, with light and dark? We ask Dido, Alcina… and discover what they have been whispering to us for centuries.

Artistic project leader and keyboard player Andreas Küppers builds a programme on three rock-solid pillars: Lully, Purcell and Handel. The tragédie lyrique by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) proved to be an innovation with its typical overture, plenty of dances and agréments, sturdy choruses at the heart of the action with their alternation of solo and tutti passages, and its rich instrumentation of strings and winds. Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was clearly influenced by that Lullyan style for Dido and Aeneas and his semi-operas, but not without developing his own distinctly English signature. Two eminent predecessors on which German-in-England George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was again keen to build on in several of his London operas and oratorios.

In the hands of these three highly distinguished storytellers, one constant remains: the truthfulness, beauty and emotional power of the music.