Handel Festival in Halle

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Handel Festival
General information
place Halle (Saale) , GermanyGermanyGermany 
genre Baroque music
organizer Handel House Foundation
Period since 1922
Website haendelhaus.de

The Handel Festival in Halle (Saale) is the largest music festival in the state of Saxony-Anhalt and has been a member of the Saxony-Anhalt Music Festival since 2012 . It is one of the most important and oldest festivals for baroque music in Germany. The festival in Georg Friedrich Handel's birthplace, which dates back to 1922 and has been held annually since 1952, mainly in June , is regarded as the “center of European Handel care”. Since the internationalization of the festival in 1959, the Handel Prize has been awarded and a scientific conference has been organized as part of the festival . The seventeen-day festival is organized by the city of Halle in coordination with the Georg Friedrich Händel Society . The festival management is located in the Handel House in Halle, and the musicologist Clemens Birnbaum has been the artistic director since 2009 .

history

In 1922 there was the first "Halle Handel Festival", which met the requirements of a festival. The program included operas, oratorios and instrumental music. Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels named the city the "Reichs-Handel City 1935". Handel days were held in Halle between 1936 and 1944. With the opening of the Handel House in 1948 and the first “Handel Days of the City of Halle” from February 22 to March 2, the Handel enthusiasm in Halle was fired. In 1951 the Halle city theater , which was destroyed in the air raids on Halle (Saale) in 1945, reopened.

Special GDR stamp for the Handel Festival in Halle in 1952

The general music director and chief conductor of the Handel Festival Orchestra of the Landestheater Halle, Horst-Tanu Margraf, was one of the main initiators of the first official “Handel Festival” in 1952. It took place from July 5th to 13th. Almost all of the city's music institutions were involved in a project that was aimed at all of Germany . The conception was based on expert advice from u. a. Max Schneider and Walter Serauky . Handel's operas were to be renewed for the “contemporary theater”. In 1952 the three Handel operas Agrippina , Alcina and Tamerlan were staged.

The festival should take place regularly from the following year. They were scheduled for around five days. Central figures in the early years were Margraf, the directors Heinz Rückert and Siegmund Skraup and the set designer Rudolf Heinrich . The “golden age” began with the opera Alcina in the 1950s and Radamisto and Poro stood for the renaissance of Handel operas. One based on the staging principle of the " Realistic Music Theater " by Walter Felsenstein . In 1955, the international Georg Friedrich Händel Society was founded in Halle, which was responsible for the Halle Handel Edition and the Handel Yearbook . This made the composer more and more aware of the musicians. The singer Philine Fischer became the prima donna of those years. Among the performers in the concertante during this time were u. a. the Singakademie Halle , the Stadtsingechor zu Halle , the choir of the Evangelical University for Church Music Halle , the State Symphony Orchestra Saxony-Anhalt and the Ludwig Schuster Quartet . 1957 was a "collective of the Handel Festival" with the national prize of the GDR III. Class excellent.

On the 200th anniversary of Georg Friedrich Handel's death in 1959, there was a state ceremony with Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl . The Handel Festival should be internationalized. The Russian Academic State Choir of the USSR, the Czech Philharmonic Choir, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the British Deller Consort and the French pianist Hélène Boschi were invited to Halle. The Handel Prize was then awarded for the first time during the festival . In addition, a scientific conference was held for the first time as part of the festival in 1959 , in which international researchers took part. In addition, the Handel oratorios were maintained in Halle . Due to the increased importance of the event, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Radio Choir participated again and again from the mid-1950s . The Triumph of Time and Truth in particular was well received at the 1959 Festival.

The festival was also to be confronted with the “ Bitterfelder Weg ” in 1959/64. A “new image of Handel” had become desirable, for example Walther Siegmund-Schultze saw Handel as a “realist, humanist, enlightener”. The change in meaning of the composer led to the consideration of historical performance practice . At the 1961 Festival, the London Handel Opera Society gave a guest performance with the opera Rinaldo . There were also changes in personnel: soloists such as Kurt Hübenthal and Beate Lenk gained in importance. The dramaturge Waldtraut Lewin and the director Harry Kupfer started their work. Wolfgang Kersten became opera director and Thomas Sanderling musical director. In 1964 the Goethe Theater Bad Lauchstädt was restored.

From 1972 the festival was called the "Handel Festival of the GDR in Halle". The more socialist orientation of the festival in the 1970s led to the expansion of the venues a. a. of the Memleben monastery ruins and the Zeitz hydrogenation plant . The festival was looking for international recognition. In 1974 the Barock-Consort Halle (then renamed Hallesches Consort) was founded under the Festival concertmaster and Collegium instrumentale director Manfred Otte . General music director Christian Kluttig was able in the 1970s a. a. fall back on Martin Schneider , Andreas Baumann and Bernd Leistner.

Original language versions were implemented from the mid-1980s. In addition, one broke away from naturalistic elements. In 1984, the director's theater found its way into the Handel Festival with Peter Konwitschny's opera production Floridante . The 34th Handel Festival was incorporated into the "Bach-Handel-Schütz Honor of the GDR 1985". Two years earlier, the Georg Friedrich Handel Center had been established under Claus Haake in the Handel House, which was also joined by the permanent office of the Festival as well as the concert hall on the boulevard and the editorial collective of the Halle Handel Edition . For the 300th birthday of the composer, the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir sang the oratorio Israel in Egypt under John Eliot Gardiner . There was also a guest appearance by the Welsh National Opera with Tamerlano . Since the presentation of the Handel Works Directory by Bernd Baselt , this has been used in the programs of the festival. Contemporary music was integrated into the “Konfrontation” series by Hans Jürgen Wenzel at the festival .

Venue Opera House Halle (2017)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Handel Center was dissolved. A program advisory board and a support association were formed . From then on, the festival was supported by the city of Halle, the organizer, and the state government of Saxony-Anhalt . In addition, private sponsors were won. In 1992 the Halle Opera House emerged from the Theater of Peace . In addition, new venues close to Handel, such as the market church Our Dear Women and the Halle Cathedral, were won. After a two-year break, the Handel Prize of the city of Halle has been awarded again since 1993. In 1999 the festival time was extended to ten days. Since 1993 there has also been a newly formed Handel Festival Orchestra.

On the occasion of the 50th Handel Festival in 2001, Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Prime Minister Tony Blair took over the patronage. Sir John Eliot Gardiner was awarded the Handel Prize. The laureate conducted Handel's Messiah . There was also a joint production by Tamerlano with the participation of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and Sadler's Wells in London , directed by Trevor Pinnock . At Halle Opera House was with Rodrigo the 58th Premiere instead of a Handel opera. Since 2002 the Handel Festival has not been numbered consecutively in the title due to the numerous events before 1952.

In 2006 the cooperation with the Leipzig Bach Festival began . Since 2011 there has been a pre-concert for the Handel Festival in autumn. The “small” Handel Festival has been protected as a word and image trademark since 2018 under the name “Handel in Autumn” . In 2013 the Handel Festival was canceled at short notice for the first time in the wake of the flooding in Central Europe by Lord Mayor Bernd Wiegand (independent) and Saxony-Anhalt's Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU). The decision met with a great deal of incomprehension among cultural workers. They feared claims for damages in the millions.

With the 2018 premiere of Handel's Berenice, Regina d'egitto , all of his 42 operas were staged at least once at the Handel Festival.

Handel Prize

The Handel Prize of the City of Halle is awarded by the Handel House Foundation. This year's winner is the countertenor Valer Sabadus (2020).

From 1996 onwards, an international music competition for the award of the Handel Prize of the City of Halle was integrated into the festival.

program

Handel monument on the market square in Halle (2017)

The following program elements have been established since the Handel Festival in 1952: Ceremony with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Handel monument , which is unique in Germany, on the market square in Halle. Chamber music concerts take place both in the Handel House and in the auditorium in the " Lion Building " of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . The Handel Prize will be awarded at the opening concert. The final concert is always planned with fireworks and an accompanying open air program in the Galgenberg Gorge in the north of Halle. After the political change , there were again organ concerts, sacred music and musically framed church services . To this day, the annual festival program includes the performance of a Handel opera at the Halle Opera House and the performance of the popular Handel oratorio Messiah . The festival also gives space to other styles of music ( jazz , rock, etc.). In addition, dance and drama considered.

Venues

The current venues for the Handel Festival include:

Main topics

Sources: Handel Festival Directorate and Handel House Foundation

Since the 2010 Handel Festival, there has been no longer a motto , but rather a thematic focus:

  • 2010: "Knights and other heroes"
  • 2011: "Handel and Dresden"
  • 2012: "Handel and the Denominations / After Luther"
  • 2013: "Power and Music / After Luther" ( not realized due to the flood )
  • 2014: "Georg & Georg / After Luther"
  • 2015: "Handel and his interpreters"
  • 2016: "History - Myth - Enlightenment"
  • 2017: "Original? - fake? "
  • 2018: "Foreign Worlds"
  • 2019: "Sensitive, heroic, sublime - Handel's women"
  • 2020: "Musical paintings" ( not realized due to the COVID-19 pandemic )
  • 2021: "Heroes and Redeemers"

Patrons

The following is an overview of the patrons of the Handel Festival in Halle since 1991:

Sponsor

Sponsors of the Handel Festival are the city of Halle (Saale), the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media , the Lotto Sachsen-Anhalt Society , the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung together with the Saalesparkasse foundation , the Hallesche Wohnungsgesellschaft , the TOTAL Raffinerie Mitteldeutschland, the Mitteldeutsche Barockmusik network , Orbis Real Estate real estate management , the GP Günter Papenburg group , the food manufacturer Kathi Rainer Thiele and the Halle municipal utilities .

The 2019 Handel Festival was broadcast in concert at ARTE Concert, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and MDR Kultur .

Publications

In 1922 Karras & Koennecke published the first commemorative publication for the Halle Handel Festival . In 1925, Hans Schnoor published the German Handel Festival in Leipzig at Breitkopf & Härtel . June 6-8, 1925 . From 1928 to 1930 a festival and program book for the Handel Festival was published by the Handel Society. In 1934 a contribution about the German Handel Festival was published in Krefeld . In 1952/53 the Handel Festival Committee published a commemorative publication for the Handel Festival in Halle . From 1954 to 1956 the Handel Festival Committee in the German Publishing House for Music in Leipzig published a commemorative publication for the Handel Festival… Halle . A magazine under the title Handel Festival Halle was published by the Festival Committee in 1957/58 and from 1960 to 1971. In 1959, an extra commemorative publication was published by the German publishing house for music to honor the German Democratic Republic . From 1979 to 1989 the Festival Committee published the magazine Handel Festival of the German Democratic Republic . The Handel House Foundation in Halle (Saale) has been publishing the Handel Festival magazine since 2010 .

literature

  • Annette Landgraf: Halle Handel Festival . In: Annette Landgraf, David Vickers (Eds.): The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2009, ISBN 978-1-107-66640-5 , p. 229.
  • Konstanze Musketa : Music history of the city of Halle: Guide through the exhibition of the Handel House . Handel House, Halle an der Saale 1998, ISBN 3-910019-13-7 , pp. 78ff., 88ff.
  • Margret Scharrer: Handel Festival . In: Hans Joachim Marx (ed.): The Handel Lexicon. With 772 keywords, 36 music samples as well as a catalog raisonné and a chronicle (= The Handel Handbook . Vol. 6). Laaber, Laaber 2011, ISBN 978-3-89007-552-5 , pp. 336–338.
  • Handel Festival . In: Horst Seeger : The great lexicon of the opera. Over 12,000 keywords and explanations . Pawlak, Herrsching 1985, ISBN 3-88199-243-X , p. 246.
  • Handel Festival . In: Horst Seeger: Musiklexikon. In two volumes . Volume 1: A-K . Deutscher Verlag für Musik VEB, Leipzig 1966, p. 368.
  • Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2001, ISBN 978-3-89812-085-2 (texts in German and English).

Web links

Commons : Halle Handel Festival  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Contact , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 8, 2019.
  2. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 73.
  3. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 76.
  4. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 27.
  5. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 28.
  6. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 25.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p For the love of Handel , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 7, 2019.
  8. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 30.
  9. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 29.
  10. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 32.
  11. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 38.
  12. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 46.
  13. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 37.
  14. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 39.
  15. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 44.
  16. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 45.
  17. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 47.
  18. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 49.
  19. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 51.
  20. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 54.
  21. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 58.
  22. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 59.
  23. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 61.
  24. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 63.
  25. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 70.
  26. ↑ Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 71.
  27. ↑ Handel Festival in Halle with positive results , magazin.klassik.com, accessed: November 8, 2019.
  28. ↑ Handel im Herbst , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 9, 2019.
  29. ↑ Bernd Lähne: Handel Festival: outrage over cancellation . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , June 11, 2013, p. 2.
  30. ↑ Karin Zauft: "In the future we will know that the Handel opera is one of the most precious goods in musical art ..." . In: Magazin der Handel Festival (2018), pp. 27–29, here: p. 27.
  31. ↑ 2020 , haendelhaus.de, accessed: April 20, 2020.
  32. ↑ a b Karin Zauft: Handel and the Handel Festival in Halle. Halle (Saale) 2001, p. 42.
  33. ↑ Venues , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 7, 2019.
  34. ^ City of Halle (Saale) - Department of Residential Affairs (Ed.): Special publication Culture in the mirror of statistics 2004 . Halle (Saale) n.d., p. 22.
  35. ^ City of Halle (Saale) - Department of Residential Affairs (Ed.): Special publication Culture in the mirror of statistics 2011 . Halle (Saale), undated, p. 15.
  36. ↑ Over 50,000 visitors celebrated the Handel Festival in Halle 2017 , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 9, 2019.
  37. ↑ Another 58,000 visitors celebrate the Handel Festival in Halle , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 8, 2019.
  38. ↑ Handel's cartridge , haendelhaus.de, accessed November 7, 2019.
  39. ↑ Sponsoren , haendelhaus.de, accessed: Nov. 9, 2019.
  40. ↑ The Handel Festival 2019 in the media , haendelhaus.de, accessed: November 9, 2019.