Handel: Arminio (2-DVD) – Max Emanuel Cencic

Composer: Georg Frideric Handel
Artists: Max Emanuel Cencic, Lauren Snouffer, Aleksandra Kubas-Kruk, Gaia Petrone, Juan Sancho, Owen Willetts, Pavel Gudinov, Armonia Atenea
Conductor: George Petrou
Director: Max Emanuel Cencic
Format: NTSC
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean
Region: All Regions
Number of Discs: 2
Studio: C Major Entertainment
DVD Release Date: April 27, 2018
Run Time: 168 minutes

Max Emanuel Cencic excels with his celebrated and award-winning production of George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece Arminio at the International Handel Festival Karlsruhe. The remarkable counter-tenor Cencic, who dedicates himself to the revival and performance of the music of the 18th century, demonstrates once more that Baroque singing can be both technically brilliant and at the same time modern and emotionally engaging. His enchanting staging of Arminio is the fulminant revival of the heroic story.

When it premiered in 1737 at London’s Covent Garden, Arminio strangely received only six performances, despite being praised as a miracle and in every respect excellent and vastly pleasing by contemporaries. Handel’s opera fell into oblivion until Cencic put it into the limelight, resulting in the rehabilitation of the piece (FAZ). Cencic’s production of Arminio, which created a furor when performed at the Theater an der Wien, features the ensemble Armonia Atenea under the baton of George Petrou and stars the stage director in the leading role: Cencic as not only counter-tenor but also as stage director at the peak of his success (Süddeutsche Zeitung).

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