Page 6 - Resurrezione Coverage Book

28 April 2021

Handel's message for the modern world

Lady Linda Wong Davies

Why the rarely-heard oratorio La

Resurrezione is a perfect project for our times

I set up the KT Wong Foundation 13 years ago with the mission of celebrating the

very best contemporary art forms of the East and West through collaborative cultural
projects. My pervading passion has always been baroque music, and Handel in

particular – one of our very first major projects was co-producing Semele with the
Theatre La Monnaie in Brussels with the major avant-garde Chinese artist Zhang

Huan commissioned to design and direct it. It was a gamble but became a huge
success and then travelled to Toronto, New York (BAM), Beijing and Shanghai. In

that sense 13 years on our mission still hasn’t changed – to foster mutual
understanding and to bring projects to fruition that would never otherwise have the
chance to happen, and of course also to keep celebrating the work of my favourite

composer!

Our collaboration with Sky Arts for a new production of La Resurrezione was born
out of a desire to bring some hope and optimism at this time, when things have felt

very bleak for the arts across the entire world. This project was conjured up in my
head in the tropical heat of Malaysia – extraordinary to think that even in 35 degree
heat Handel’s music can prevail! I felt so strongly that La Resurrezione was the

perfect work – aptly marking the coming of spring, a fresh resurgence of new life and
possibilities, and hopefully also a new beginning for the arts following what has been

an extraordinarily difficult time.