Resurrection: In Concert

Performance Run Time: 2 hours including intermission. Opera Atelier Music Director David Fallis conducts Handel’s The Resurrection in concert. Written for Easter in 1708, The Resurrection details the events between Good Friday and Easter Sunday and the tension leading up to Christ’s resurrection following his crucifixion and burial. Featuring soloists of international acclaim, and accompanied by Chicago’s own Haymarket Opera Orchestra, this recital version of Resurrection allows audiences to experience the work as originally intended by the composer. The role of the Archangel — written for a castrato in Handel’s original composition — will be performed by soprano Carla Huhtanen, renowned for her vocal range and razor-sharp coloratura. Baritone David Witczak will sing the role of Lucifer. A superb linguist, Witczak is praised for his impassioned delivery of Italian repertoire. Tenor Antonin Rondepierre as St. John the Evangelist, Soprano Meghan Lindsay as Mary Magdalene, and mezzo soprano Mireille Lebel as Mary Cleophas round out the cast, promising deeply sensitive and nuanced performances. The opera’s narrative plays out simultaneously across two spheres. In the celestial realm, a militant Archangel demands entrance to Hades and disputes the claims of a boastful Lucifer, insisting Christ’s death was an act of sacrificial love. Meanwhile, on Earth, Mary Magdalene, Cleophas, and St. John the Evangelist struggle to make sense of Christ’s brutal death. Handel’s astonishingly sensual score and vivid word painting act as a catalyst for an exceptional play of emotions for the protagonists. About Opera Atelier Established in 1985, Opera Atelier is Canada’s premier period opera/ballet company, specializing in producing opera, ballet, and drama from the 17th and 18th centuries. Their productions feature soloists of international acclaim, period ballet, original instruments, elaborate stage decor, intricate costumes, and an imaginative energy that sets Opera Atelier apart. Founding Co-Artistic Directors Marshall Pynkoski C.M. and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg C.M. were both awarded the Order of Canada for their contributions to opera and ballet and were recently both named Officers of the Order of Arts and Letters (Officiers dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) from the French Republic. Opera Atelier has been acclaimed throughout Canada and regularly tours to the Royal Opera House in Versailles. The company also performed at the Glimmerglass Festival in New York, Salzburg Festival, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and La Scala in Milan. Opera Atelier has collaborated with some of early music’s most distinguished artists, including Andrew Parrott, Trevor Pinnock, Hervé Niquet, Marc Minkowski, and many others. Through historically informed performance practice, Opera Atelier allows audiences to experience the continuum of musical form — hearing and seeing great works in the ways these works might have first resonated. In inspired programming, Opera Atelier creates art that speaks to the here and now and finds fresh relevance for society in evergreen creations. Through impassioned outreach and audience development, Opera Atelier aims to secure a future by ensuring opera has a place in the hearts and lives of the upcoming generation. About Haymarket Opera Company Haymarket Opera Company contributes to the diverse and culturally vibrant artistic community of Chicago and the Midwest through the historically informed presentation of opera and oratorio from the 17th and 18th centuries, including many Chicago and U.S. premieres. Since its founding in 2010, Haymarket has offered more than 30 productions using period instruments and historically informed staging conventions, shining a spotlight on many lesser-known but quality pieces by a wide diversity of composers, sung and played by a combination of international stars and top regional talent. The company has received glowing reviews, including in the Chicago Tribune, Italy’s L’Opera, Opera News, and Early Music America. The New York Times praised Haymarket’s “finely played, carefully sung, lovingly detailed period performance.” Haymarket attracted national attention by offering a season of filmed Handel operas that reached more than 800,000 households during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 2020, Haymarket has partnered with WFMT to broadcast on the historic Saturday Matinee Broadcast series, alongside the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and Paris Opera, reaching over one million listeners worldwide through free broadcasts. Following an acclaimed 2022 stage production of biracial composer Joseph Bologne’s only extant opera, L’Amant anonyme, Haymarket released the world-premiere recording of the opera in collaboration with the Grammy Award–winning label Cedille Records. The recording is the inaugural project supported by the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Fund for Vocal Recordings. In 2020, Haymarket was included in the “Ten Best of the Decade” by the Chicago Sun-Times, and, in 2021, it was praised as offering “Chicago’s finest operatic event” by the Chicago Classical Review. In 2021 and 2022, Haymarket was listed alongside the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera in the Chicago Tribune’s “Top 10 Classical and Opera performances.” In 2022, Musical America lauded Haymarket as “among the most impressive period-performance ensembles around today.”