oratorio

Harry Bicket and the English Concert presented the composer’s highly theatrical but little-known 1745 oratorio in an uneven but frequently arresting performance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026

The composer struts in during a rehearsal, uncorks an embarrassingly stagey speech about his life and views, and forbids Guthrie from putting his modern spin on the oratorio.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

An opera disguised as an oratorio to get around the church’s ban on profane opera, the impolitic work about past and present is formed as the conflict between extravagance and sanctity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2025

The latter was an example of how the overuse of this overwrought oratorio made it perfect fodder for parody, and the humor of juicing something comedic with its uber-seriousness.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 12, 2025

This contemporary lithograph lampoons the panicked gentry who fled the city - and thus turned Handel’s new oratorio, Theodora, into a box-office flop.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

George Frideric Handel wrote some 42 operas across his career — his unstaged oratorios such as “Messiah” constitute a separate category — but Seattle Opera has presented only three of these to date.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 6, 2023

But the larger ideas of “unEarth” are more directly delivered than those of any of her other socially conscious but primarily historical oratorios, dating back to “Steel Hammer” more than a decade ago.

From New York Times ● May 31, 2023

Theodorakis wrote more than 200 popular songs, 10 symphonies, two oratorios, three ballets, a folk opera and the Olympic anthem, first performed at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

From Reuters ● Sep. 8, 2021

The challenges of signing music multiply when it comes to polyphonic works like the Passion oratorios of Bach, with their complex tapestries of orchestral and vocal counterpoint and declamatory recitatives.

From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2021

After Esther Handel presented a further twenty-one oratorios in London.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall