
Handel’s ‘Tolomeo’ at Glimmerglass: Fair, but not balanced
Glimmerglass Opera presents a musically satisfying production of Handel’s handsome though largely-ignored opera, but production’s tragi-comic elements out of whack
By David Abrams
No one need explain the subtleties of tragedy and comedy to Mel Brooks, who famously proclaimed, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Glimmerglass Opera’s farcical production of Handel’s opera seria, Tolomeo, which received its North American premiere Sunday under the direction of Chas Rader-Shieber, suggests that opera directors using humor as a device to make Handel’s dramatic works more relevant to modern audiences may, like the incorrigible Mr. Brooks, be working from a faulty model…
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