Key’mon Murrah & Les Talens Lyriques to Perform ‘Handelian Heroes’ at LA Opera
By David Salazar(Photo credit: L2 Artists)
LA Opera will present Les Talens Lyriques and countertenor Key’mon Murrah in “Handelian Heroes” at Zipper Hall at The Colburn School on May 24, 2026.
Murrah will perform arias from four of Händel’s “Ariodante,” “Julius Caesar,” “Xerxes,” and “Rinaldo.” Also on the program are instrumental works including the Concerto Grosso Op. 3, No. 2 and the passacaglia from “Rodrigo.”
Murrah, the 2024 Marian Anderson Award winner, made his LA Opera debut in 2023 as Leonardo in Gabriela Lena Frank’s “The Last Dream of Frida and Diego.” Recent engagements include his Metropolitan Opera debut as Balthazar in John Adams’ “El Niño,” the title role in “Xerxes” with Detroit Opera, and Hamor in Händel’s “Jephtha” with the Komische Oper Berlin.
The ensemble will be led by its founder and artistic director Christophe Rousset.
“When I began my harpsichord studies in Aix-en-Provence, I had the privilege of attending the final rehearsal of Händel’s ‘Alcina,'” said Rousset, per an official press release. “A vivid impression has remained with me ever since: the beauty of the voices, magnified by an incomparably elegant writing style, the contrasts of emotions, the exhilaration born of virtuosity, and the profound expressive power of the adagios. Thus was born a love that has never faded—for this composer, for the voices best suited to serve him, for Baroque opera, and for the sense of wonder it so beautifully conveys. A Händel aria remains forever a model of its kind—through its form, its expressive substance, and the unique space it offers to the voice. Some of his most beautiful arias, even the most frequently performed, continue to exert an incomparable emotional power over me. I believe I shall never tire of them, nor ever be without them.”
Founded by Rousset in 1991, Les Talens Lyriques takes its name from the subtitle of Rameau’s 1739 opera “Les Fêtes d’Hébé” and spans repertoire from the early Baroque to the dawn of Romanticism.
The concert kicks off at 2 p.m. local time.
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