Description
G.F. Handel - God Rot Tunbridge Wells-the Life of George Frederi / Libretto: John Osborne / Conductor: Charles Mackerras / English Chamber Orchestra / Stage Director: Tony Palmer / 2008 DVD
Total Playtime: 119 Minutes
Region 0 NTSC
Made in Europe
UPC 604388703302
- Aspect Ratio : 16:9 - 1.78:1
- Language : English
- Product Dimensions : 1.78 x 19.05 x 13.72 cm; 77.11 Grams
- Item model number : 5458537
- Director : Tony Palmer
- Media Format : Colour, NTSC, Classical, Widescreen
- Run time : 1 hour and 59 minutes
- Release date : 28 April 2008
- Subtitles: : German, English, French, Italian, Spanish
- Language : Unqualified (DTS ES 6.1)
- Studio : Tony Palmer Films/ Select Music & Video Distribution
- Number of discs : 1
This film was originally shown in 1985 on British television to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Handel's birth. Written by John Osborne, it strips away what seemed like centuries of bad Handel performances and reveals a composer who burst upon London like a tornado and laid the foundations of an entirely different tradition of British music making - bold, brassy and brilliant. The words Osborne puts into Handel's mouth, moreover, although completely invented, are derived from a clever reworking of those texts which Handel himself had used in his various operas & oratorios.
This bold, brash biopic of George Frideric Handel, which originally aired on Britain's Channel Four in 1985, was produced to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Handel's birth. As scripted by John Osborne and directed by the iconoclastic Tony Palmer, it aggressively attempts to cut through the refined aura that time had attached to Handel, exemplified by sub-par performances of The Messiah. Osborne and Palmer paint an image of Handel (here played by the great Trevor Howard) as a musical revolutionary, who turned London upside down, permanently obliterated the stoicism of the Georgian Era, and set a precedent for centuries of assertive, aggressive, take-no-prisoners British music. The title comes from an exchange Handel purportedly had with the Turnbridge Wells Ladies' Music Society. That ensemble performed an appalling version of The Messiah that Handel could not stomach, prompting him to supposedly fire off the said phrase in a letter to them -- thereby shocking everyone.
