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Nic McGegan credit Laura Barisonzi 600x420Nicholas McGegan: Baroque Opera Set Design

Monday, January 17, 2022 at 7:00 PM EST on Zoom

 

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Nicholas McGegan will present a fascinating lecture on set design for Baroque Opera, the quintessential art form of the period. Going to the opera in the 17th and 18th centuries was the most popular type of entertainment for the upper classes throughout Europe. Nic’s presentation, using a wide range of images, gives an impression of what an audience two hundred years ago would have seen and heard. Many productions were very spectacular indeed, with the most elaborate sets and costumes, as well as stage machinery to imitate flying gods, monsters, thunder and lightning.

Maestro Nicholas McGegan has thrilled audiences and colleagues alike with his inspired music-making – combining scholarship, a keen understanding of rhetoric, and ever-present wit. Music Director of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra from 1986–2020 (now Music Director Laureate), Nic continues to guest conduct with the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, among others. He was Artistic Director and conductor for Germany’s Göttingen Handel Festival from 1991–2001, and has directed period operas in Drottningholm as well as many staged productions of Purcell, Handel and Mozart with the Mark Morris Dance Company.

GEMS is a non-profit corporation that supports and promotes the artists and organizations in New York devoted to early music — playing repertoire from the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical periods.