Dunedin Consort: Handel Belshazzar

The writing on the wall: Handel’s epic Belshazzar returns to the West End with the Dunedin Consort and a world-class cast.

“Help, help the king! He faints, he dies!” A nation in chains, a tyrant’s feast – and at the height of the revels, four words that spell doom. Handel retold a classic Old Testament tale when he premiered his oratorio Belshazzar in 1745 – but this being London, he was out to entertain as well, and this red-blooded Biblical epic pulses with drama. First performed right here in the West End, it gets superstar treatment tonight, with a cast that includes singers of the calibre of Beth Taylor and Ed Lyons plus the unstoppable vocal and orchestral forces of John Butt’s Dunedin Consort.