Ars Lyrica -"Esther" George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)

Esther & Jonah

Friday, February 16 at 7:30 pm
Zilkha Hall / Hobby Center For The Performing Arts

Soloists (in order of appearance):
Officer Cody Arthur
Haman Christopher Besch
1st Israelite Cody Arthur
2nd Israelite Renée Rybolt
3rd Israelite (alto) Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen
Esther Jennifer Bates
Mordecai Eduardo Tercero
Ahasuerus Tony Boutté
Conductor Matthew Dirst

Bach Society Houston
Rick Erickson, Director

Ars Lyrica Houston
Matthew Dirst, Artistic Director

Produced in collaboration with Bach Society Houston as part of the 2018 Houston Early Music Festival, this program comprises two concise music dramas from opposite ends of the 18th century: G. F. Handel’s Esther (1718) and Samuel Felsted’s Jonah (1775). With gorgeous arias and stirring choruses, Handel’s first English-language oratorio celebrates an Old Testament heroine’s ultimate victory over the forces of evil. Such works provided valuable models for Samuel Felsted, a composer born to an English family in Jamaica in the early 1740s. His concise setting of the story of Jonah and the whale is the first American oratorio.

© Ars Lyrica Houston 2018 www.arslyricahouston.org
Video and Audio produced by Runaway Productions LLC