Afternoon at the Opera

Partenope

 
A woman standing on furniture

San Francisco Opera

Disguises and cross-dressing reveal deep truths about the human heart in Handel’s brilliantly entertaining comedy about Queen Partenope of Naples and her three royal suitors, which features one of his greatest scores. In his Olivier Award-winning production, director Christopher Alden moves the action to 1920s Paris, and the results are never less than riveting. Baroque music specialist, Julian Wachner, leads a superb cast featuring Danielle de Niese, “a voice seductive enough to woo gods as well as mortals” (The New York Times); David Daniels (Xerxes, 2011), who “has a dramatic flair especially well-suited to Handel’s bursts of vengeance or frenzy” (The New York Times); and Daniela Mack, “a purringly elegant BMW of a singer” (Daily Telegraph, London).