An excellent little (1 hour) documentary about the origins of Handel's Messiah and The Foundling Hospital in London.
It has to pack quite a bit in, with musical performance, the years-long effort by Thomas Coram to found the Foundling, Handel's late career woes, and social history of mid-18th century London and the early years of the Foundling Hospital.
Yes, there are some (non-musical) recreations but they are generally played with informational voice-over and not just mime.
A wonderful aspect of this is the sterling performances of bits of Messiah by the Gabrieli Consort and Players (as always with period instruments, but this time in period dress, too) under Paul McCreesh dressed as Handel. It includes fine singers Lucy Crowe, Andrew Staples, Ashley Riches and the spectacular countertenor Iestyn Davies, recorded in period style in St Paul's Church in Deptford, London.
I knew a lot of this story of how Messiah helped fund The Foundling Hospital, but I learned a lot and got so see some wonderful performance, too. Recommended.
It has to pack quite a bit in, with musical performance, the years-long effort by Thomas Coram to found the Foundling, Handel's late career woes, and social history of mid-18th century London and the early years of the Foundling Hospital.
Yes, there are some (non-musical) recreations but they are generally played with informational voice-over and not just mime.
A wonderful aspect of this is the sterling performances of bits of Messiah by the Gabrieli Consort and Players (as always with period instruments, but this time in period dress, too) under Paul McCreesh dressed as Handel. It includes fine singers Lucy Crowe, Andrew Staples, Ashley Riches and the spectacular countertenor Iestyn Davies, recorded in period style in St Paul's Church in Deptford, London.
I knew a lot of this story of how Messiah helped fund The Foundling Hospital, but I learned a lot and got so see some wonderful performance, too. Recommended.