Traxler, Prohaska & L’Orfeo Barockorchester

Magnificent Baroque music, featuring Handel’s *Water Music* and *Fireworks Music*, in a musical dialogue with arias and opera scenes.

The L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, conducted by Erich Traxler, has two of George Frideric Handel’s most opulent and famous orchestral works in its repertoire: His“Water Music”was composed as background music for a pleasure cruise by King George I on the Thames, while the“Fireworks Music”—as the name suggests—was performed as festive music for a fireworks display with which King George II celebrated the Peace of Aachen and thus the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. Against this backdrop of royal pomp, soprano Anna Prohaska—known for her expressive interpretations and her great dramatic talent—presents a refined selection of well-known and lesser-known arias by Handel and Christoph Graupner: From the sensual“Vaghe perle, eletti fiori”from *Agrippina* to dazzling numbers such as“Geloso tormento”from Handel’s first opera , *Almira, Queen of Castile*.