# Single Round: Mixed Voices/ Semele. McCormack, Ferrier, Bostridge



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

See notes below


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

My intent is to break up contests with very different music to give you variety. I predict it will be hard to pick your favorite version of this incredibly beautiful aria. All are very distinctive and beautifully sung from my perspective. Enjoy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The sensitivity, creativity, musicality and style that Ian Bostridge brings to this puts it in a different class altogether from the finely sung but penny plain performances of McCormack and Ferrier. They're pleasant enough in their own right, but only Bostridge looks very far beyond the notes on the page, in ways including but not limited to his perfectly judged embellishments in the da capo, gracing but never obscuring the lovely Handelian line. His eschewal of a cadenza feels not like a failure of imagination but a fulfillment of Handel's aspiration to an ideal, classical simplicity. 

If others want to complain about Bostridge's distinctive, heady vocal production, they're welcome to it.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Bostridge is a model of Handelian style and sensitivity here. Absolutely fab!

Anthony Rolf Johnson makes a pretty good stab at it too!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I reluctantly give it to Bostridge despite the weird acoustic and the awful “original instruments,” which I detest for their ugly sounds. As Woodduck says, Bostridge brings something more to the table.

Ferrier is the wrong voice for me. I love McCormack, but not in this aria, which is one of my favorites.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Wow did I enjoy this!! Just gorgeous music and performances, really so beautiful.

Being familiar with the McCormack I decided to go backwards and started with Bostridge and found it the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard him sing. I'm a fan but haven't really heard that much. And on this it has to be acknowledged that the orchestra gets star billing as well but it was just luxurious sound from beginning to end. Then after the simple, un-prepossessing piano opening for Ferrier out comes that voice which must be one of the very most beautiful low female voices in the history of opera. Unfailingly beautiful and musical from beginning to end. Then, despite the fame, and with full knowledge that the recordings of the time simply could not have captured the true beauty of the voice Mccormack simply could not compete for sonic splendor. Of course the beauty of the line and the crystal clear words were all there.

So after all that, it would seem to be a reasonably tough call but I didn't find it that at all. For impact on me the other two could not compete with Bostridge. He alone made me go back and listen a second time and phrase after phrase was filled with extremely personal expression, making the singer come alive while maintaining the propulsion of the musical line...(and a worthy discussion...how is it that the line can be maintained when the voice comes to a stop within...but it can!). The line that Bartoli famously crosses over in terms of expression was safely maintained. The ornaments at the end were judicious and, I thought, exquisite!. My one complaint....the use of pauses was at times dramatically long and I thought too long, losing the feeling of the breath that should properly time them. Ferrier and McCormack sounded uninvolved comparatively, gorgeous as their singing was.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

marlow said:


> Bostridge is a model of Handelian style and sensitivity here. Absolutely fab!
> 
> Anthony Rolf Johnson makes a pretty good stab at it too!


I find Johnson doesn't come close to Bostridge. He sounds pleasantly anonymous and bland to me. There's hardly any variety in his articulation of either words or music, and no sense of spontaneity. The "B" section provides no real contrast, and the textbook embellishments in the da capo don't create the sense of freshness that is their only reason fo being. Bostridge finds dynamic subtleties and expressive articulations of words that would make his recap interesting and meaningful even if he didn't embellish at all.

These performances do raise the question of what "Handelian style" is. To me, the thing to remember is that Handel was first of all a composer of Italian opera, and second of all the originator of a very dramatic style of choral writing. I suspect he didn't become nice and proper until the Victorian era dressed him in Anglican choir robes and organists started playing "Ombra mai fu" at funerals. Ferrier's performance of "Where e'er you walk" would have cured prince Albert's insomnia, if he'd suffered from it, and McCormack's is kept alive by his seeming eagerness to get it over with.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I generally love Ferrier and McCormick but I agree with the rest of you so far, Bostridge made a slam dunk with this. I find both his voice and the way he uses it to be wonderful. His ornamentation was in a different league. I find this aria to be so beautiful.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Bostridge is not a favourite of mine. I usually find he fusses the music too much and over-inflects it. However I do like what he does here. Neither McCormack nor Ferrier do much with the piece, possibly due to a rather fustian, old fashioned, over respectful style of singing Handel in those days. 

Unlike MAS, I like the original instruments and in fact find it hard to listen to Baroque music on modern instruments these days. I also find Bostridge's perforarmance much more interesting. He makes it sound like a love song, really addressing it to the subject of his affections. An easy win for him here.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> I find Johnson doesn't come close to Bostridge. He sounds pleasantly anonymous and bland to me. There's hardly any variety in his articulation of either words or music, and no sense of spontaneity. The "B" section provides no real contrast, and the textbook embellishments in the da capo don't create the sense of freshness that is their only reason fo being. Bostridge finds dynamic subtleties and expressive articulations of words that would make his recap interesting and meaningful even if he didn't embellish at all.
> 
> These performances do raise the question of what "Handelian style" is. To me, the thing to remember is that Handel was first of all a composer of Italian opera, and second of all the originator of a very dramatic style of choral writing. I suspect he didn't become nice and proper until the Victorian era dressed him in Anglican choir robes and organists started playing "Ombra mai fu" at funerals. Ferrier's performance of "Where e'er you walk" would have cured prince Albert's insomnia, if he'd suffered from it, and McCormack's is kept alive by his seeming eagerness to get it over with.


Yes point taken. Handel was an opera composer first and last. Just listen to the early 'Dixit Dominus' or 'La Resurrezione'! Of course the operas have only been appreciated in recent years because we have only in recent years found out what proper Handelian style is all about. Interesting that Messiah was a failure in England initially because it was considered 'operatic'. The Irish didn't have a problem with it but the English did, initially, until the Foundling Hospital revival of the work. But even the oratorios are actually semi-operas in another guise. Semele is an oddity that no-one appears to know whether it is opera or secular oratorio. It is often semi staged . Great fun though!

I think I was so taken with Johnson's performance because I heard it many many years ago in a record shop when the Handelian revival was just beginning. It struck me as the most beautiful thing I have ever heard as up till then add on the other hand the aria as in the other two performances a la McCormack or Ferrier or sung by pupils of my teacher I happened to overhear. But of course it was recorded in 1983 when Gardiner was just beginning his quests into such repertoire. Just wonder what Johnson would make of it now. Anyway here's another performance I enjoy. I hope the OP doesn't mind me including this but I think it's beautifully sung


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

marlow said:


> Yes point taken. Handel was an opera composer first and last. Just listen to the early 'Dixit Dominus' or 'La Resurrezione'! Of course the operas have only been appreciated in recent years because we have only in recent years found out what proper Handelian style is all about.


I hate to say it, I think it's slightly exaggerated how much Handel "did for the opera". I associate the expressivity of the aria-ensemble writing of later eras more with Bach, and I'm not able to see how the tempo changes in the et carnatus ests/crucifixi in Zelenka's masses are less "dramatic" than Handel's liturgical stuff. People still tend to see Bach (rather than Handel) as representing the "rhythmic/dynamic monotony" of the late Baroque (which is generally thought to be the antithesis of things secular, forwarding-looking, "empfindsamer"; "operatic"). I just don't think it's fair.
Et in Secula Seculorum: 



HWV440: 



 (~56:00)



> "Handel was more concerned with the feelings of mortals. "Even when the subject of his work is religious, Handel is writing about the human response to the divine," says conductor Bicket."
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-glorious-history-of-handels-messiah-148168540/


Sorry, I can't see how.
Et in terra pax (BWV235): 




10:40




If Handel wrote like this Dies irae (Hasse), I would have given him more credit.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

hammeredklavier said:


> Ironically, I think it's slightly exaggerated how much Handel "did for the opera". I associate the expressivity of the aria-ensemble writing of later eras more with Bach, and I'm not able to see how the tempo changes in the et carnatus ests/crucifixi in Zelenka's masses are less "dramatic" than Handel's liturgical stuff. Also, I hate to say; people still tend to see Bach (rather than Handel) as representing the "rhythmic/dynamic monotony" of the late Baroque (which is generally thought to be the antithesis of things secular, forwarding-looking, "empfindsamer"; "operatic"). I just don't think it's fair.
> Et in Secula Seculorum:
> 
> 
> ...


I cannot see what you are trying to say. All I was saying is that Handel was basically an opera composer. You have just quoted liturgical composers


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

marlow said:


> I cannot see what you are trying to say.


Sorry about the rant. I'm also trying to figure out what "Handelian style" is truly about.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

hammeredklavier said:


> Sorry about the rant. I'm also trying to figure out what "Handelian style" is truly about.


See Handel for a start


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> If others want to complain about Bostridge's distinctive, heady vocal production, they're welcome to it.


I wouldn't dream of it. :devil:

I suspect that I'll be the lone McCormack vote, but this recording, made quite late in his career, does him a real disservice. His electrical recordings are uniformly inferior to his acoustics. As for Bostridge, my aversion to him is due to one of the most discomforting performances I've ever witnessed, a Winterreise in Boston several years ago, and I can no longer get beyond the voice itself, and what I hear as affectation in delivery. Obviously, YMMV.

Try John Mark Ainsley instead:






Or John Aler:


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

^^

Must confess I find Aler a bit potty mouthed here in his pronunciation. An American trying to be an English gentleman?


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I am no scholar on Handel, but a good bit of his arias I find rather ho hum, BUT some of his arias (like the ones coming up in the contest) are some of the most hauntingly beautiful arias I've ever heard. e.g. Ah mio cor from Alcina. They are tremendously moving and gloriously realized pieces.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Unlike MAS, I like the original instruments and in fact find it hard to listen to Baroque music on modern instruments these days. I also find Bostridge's perforarmance much more interesting. He makes it sound like a love song, really addressing it to the subject of his affections. An easy win for him here.


My contention is that the composers themselves would've switched to the more modern instruments if they'd lived - who wouldn't want the "latest thing?"


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

MAS said:


> My contention is that the composers themselves would've switched to the more modern instruments if they'd lived - who wouldn't want the "latest thing?"


The only thing is of course if they'd had modern instruments they'd have written for modern instruments and created sounds for modern instruments. I have no problem with listening to Baroque with modern instruments but it is more appropriate with the sounds Handel et al had in mind.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I am no scholar on Handel, but a good bit of his arias I find rather ho hum, BUT some of his arias (like the ones coming up in the contest) are some of the most hauntingly beautiful arias I've ever heard. e.g. Ah mio cor from Alcina. They are tremendously moving and gloriously realized pieces.


One of the problems of Handel's operas is that they were written for the upper classes to enjoy an evening out. No one expected to listen to the whole opera like we do today and people would generally be amusing themselves inbetween the bits they liked with card games and other things perhaps less palatable. Perhaps accounts for the incredibly stupid libretti sometimes. They really were showcases for the singers. I must confess I enjoy them tremendously but modern producers have to be really imaginative to make them palatable to modern audiences!


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

marlow said:


> ?..but modern producers have to be really imaginative to make them palatable to modern audiences


And that's how _Eurotrash_ came about. :lol: :lol: :lol: :devil:


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

MAS said:


> And that's how _Eurotrash_ came about. :lol: :lol: :lol: :devil:


No the Agrippina was Sir David McVicar's production! Anglo- American! :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts? I can't express what a relief it was, accustomed as I'd become to this wimpiness, to turn to Beecham's outrageously naughty _Messiah_ and hear Jon Vickers, taking a break from Canio, Otello and Siegmund, bring into the cathedral the same voice that filled the opera house.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

marlow said:


> One of the problems of Handel's operas is that they were written for the upper classes to enjoy an evening out. No one expected to listen to the whole opera like we do today and people would generally be amusing themselves inbetween the bits they liked with card games and other things perhaps less palatable.


Indeed. Here is Lord Foppington in a speech from *The Relapse*, which was first seen in 1696.



> I rise, madam, about ten a-clack. I don't rise sooner, because
> 'tis the worst thing in the world for the complexion ; nat
> that I pretend to be a beau ; but a man must endeavour to
> look wholesome, lest he make so nauseous a figure in the
> ...


I've been reading a lot recently about how badly behaved modern audiences are becoming, especially at musicals. Maybe they are taking a lesson from Handel's and Vanburgh's time.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts? I can't express what a relief it was, accustomed as I'd become to this wimpiness, to turn to Beecham's outrageously naughty _Messiah_ and hear Jon Vickers, taking a break from Canio, Otello and Siegmund, bring into the cathedral the same voice that filled the opera house.


I love that recording with its huge (modern) orchestra and massed choir.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

marlow said:


> One of the problems of Handel's operas is


To be honest, to me the problem is not actually Handel's music, but the "Handel uber alles" attitude of a certain Handel enthusiast on the forum, who uses all kinds of weird logic to denigrate other 18th century composers of liturgical music as "outdated for their time", "too stuck in the past", "harmonically grating", "not operatic". Maybe I'm being too whiny. I'm out.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts? I can't express what a relief it was, accustomed as I'd become to this wimpiness, to turn to Beecham's outrageously naughty _Messiah_ and hear Jon Vickers, taking a break from Canio, Otello and Siegmund, bring into the cathedral the same voice that filled the opera house.


Is it because the operas don't really have great roles for tenors? The more important tenor roles seem to be in orotorios, like *Judas Maccabaeus*, *Jeptha*, *Messiah* and *Semele*.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts?


He's no Vickers (and not British), but you might want to listen to Texan Bruce Ford:






It's a shame that Stuart Burrows doesn't seem to have recorded the aria.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Woodduck said:


> Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts? I can't express what a relief it was, accustomed as I'd become to this wimpiness, to turn to Beecham's outrageously naughty _Messiah_ and hear Jon Vickers, taking a break from Canio, Otello and Siegmund, bring into the cathedral the same voice that filled the opera house.


Vickers was actually Canadian. Yes I enjoy him singing Thou Shalt break them, but wouldn't fancy him in this:






With Vickers the morn wouldn't steal it would shatter!


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Why do all these British tenors singing Baroque music sound so much alike with their polite pastel tones? Are they all products of boychoirs? Were they all plucked from boarding school and trained by David Willcocks or George Guest? Couldn't we please have a tenor sing Handel with some edge, vibrancy and guts? I can't express what a relief it was, accustomed as I'd become to this wimpiness, to turn to Beecham's outrageously naughty _Messiah_ and hear Jon Vickers, taking a break from Canio, Otello and Siegmund, bring into the cathedral the same voice that filled the opera house.







"The highlights of his classical recordings were two early 1960s albums of Handel conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. McKellar took the tenor soloist in a version of Messiah alongside Joan Sutherland and made a solo album of songs and arias. These led Boult to claim that McKellar was the century's best singer of Handel."

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/12/kenneth-mckellar-obituary

If Boult had heard either "Ae Fond Kiss" or "Hail, Caledonia" he would have considered McKellar to be the century's greatest singer... period.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

wkasimer said:


> He's no Vickers (and not British), but you might want to listen to Texan Bruce Ford:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


His voice has more heft and shine than we usually get. Now he needs to do a little more with the words and music. I sometimes wonder if the rather frigid notion of "terraced dynamics" makes singers think that they can't vary dynamic levels at will in Baroque music. Bostridge and his conductor are not inhibited by any such idea, and they achieve a wonderful range of expression. I'm finding that their nuances repay repeated listening, and I suspect I'm now spoiled for performances of this.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Is it because the operas don't really have great roles for tenors? The more important tenor roles seem to be in orotorios, like *Judas Maccabaeus*, *Jeptha*, *Messiah* and *Semele*.


In Handel operas the stars were castratos not tenors!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

marlow said:


> In Handel operas the stars were castratos not tenors!


It takes BALLS to make that statement LOL I find that statement rather nutty :lol:


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Seattleoperafan said:


> It takes BALLS to make that statement LOL I find that statement rather nutty :lol:


Here, in one convenient article is more than anyone would really want to ever know -

"*In Opera, a Different Kind of Less Is More: 'Handel and the Castrati'*"

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/19/...rent-kind-of-less-is-more-handel-and-the.html

Apparently... Brace yourself for the shock... Castrati were quite temperamental -

ofttimes "moody"... and "capricious"...

No reason is given for such behavior... One can only speculate.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sunburst Finish said:


> Apparently... Brace yourself for the shock... Castrati were quite temperamental -
> 
> ofttimes "moody"... and "capricious"...
> 
> No reason is given for such behavior... One can only speculate.


Sounds like normal behavior for opera stars.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Sounds like normal behavior for opera stars.


Sutherland and Nilsson had to work hard to be good actresses as they were both rather mellow, happy people in real life. Although both were outgoing they weren't the theatrical sort by and large. Some of their best blossoming as actresses came late in their career. Callas, on the other hand, had a real artist's temperament and of course it gave her a real edge when it came to being a natural, instinctive actress. Callas actually didn't have an unusually long career like these other ladies so it is good her acting kicked in early, especially after her weight loss for a short number of years.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

We do have to realise that the tenor voice we hear today - especially the heroic type a la Vickers - would have been unknown in Handel's day. Until the nineteenth century, tenors had a lower voice than what we are used to. Their register sat lower in their voices, like a baritenor of nowadays. High notes were sung in a different way - switching to a pure head voice or falsetto once the singer would reach a certain note. That would change with Rossini and the Bel Canto school. Having said that, only the most dedicated HIP fanatic would not enjoy hearing this at least once! Bet GFH would!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

marlow said:


> We do have to realise that the tenor voice we hear today - especially the heroic type a la Vickers - would have been unknown in Handel's day. Until the nineteenth century, tenors had a lower voice than what we are used to. Their register sat lower in their voices, like a baritenor of nowadays. High notes were sung in a different way - switching to a pure head voice or falsetto once the singer would reach a certain note. That would change with Rossini and the Bel Canto school. Having said that, only the most dedicated HIP fanatic would not enjoy hearing this at least once! Bet GFH would!


Didn't Vickers also sing Handel's Samson on stage?


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Didn't Vickers also sing Handel's Samson on stage?


London 1959 with Sutherland


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Handels Samson at the Met, late in his career


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