Following on from the success of their recording of John Eccles’ Semele, Cambridge Handel Opera Company and Academy of Ancient Music come together to present another English operatic masterpiece: John Weldon’s The Judgement of Paris.
The libretto was itself designed for a contest, a musical one, with cash prizes, handsomely sponsored by a group of aristocrats. John Weldon, organist of New College Oxford, was the youngest finalist. Unexpectedly, his setting – which improves on Congreve’s libretto – won first place in the ‘Musick Prize’, triumphing over the more conservative submissions by the three older and more experienced finalists, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell, and Gottfried Finger.
Anna Dennis Venus / Kitty Whately Pallas /Helen Charlston Juno
Thomas Walker Mercury / Jonathan Brown Paris
Anna Cavaliero Attendant 1 /Aksel Rykkvin Attendant 2
Academy of Ancient Music / Julian Perkins director