The first Handel Festival in Halle was conducted in 1922, three years after the
Handel Festival in Göttingen. It showed the oratorios
Semele and
Susanna, the opera
Orlando furioso arranged by
Hans Joachim Moser, and smaller works by Handel and other Halle composers of the 16th, 17th and 18th century. A
Händel-Gesellschaft (Handel Society) was founded in 1925 and staged a second festival in 1929, directed by
Hermann Abert. The 250th anniversary of the composer in 1935 was the occasion for a third festival, termed "Reichs-Händelgedenktage" by the
Nazis. After World War II Erich Neuß,
Max Schneider, Herbert Koch and others founded a
Hallische Händel-Gesellschaft (Halle Handel Society), which organized a fourth festival in 1948 in collaboration with the Landestheater, the Evangelische Kirchenmusikschule (Academy of Protestant Church Music) and the Musikhochschule. It took place in the
Handel House, completed shortly before. Since 1952 the festival has been organized annually by the city of Halle, in collaboration with scholars of the
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg and the
Hallische Händel-Ausgabe. The festival's orchestra is since 1993 the Händel-Festspielorchester, playing
period instruments, conducted by
Howard Arman until 2007, when Bernhard Forck took over. An additional feature of the festival is the performance of works of composers from
Sachsen-Anhalt who were close to Handel. Since 1922, 34 of Handel's 42 operas have been staged in more than 100 productions. The 2006 production of
Admeto, directed by
Axel Köhler and conducted by Arman, was recorded. The pasticcio
Giove in Argo was performed in 2007 after its premiere that season at the
Handel Festival, Göttingen. The 2009 festival staged the operas
Floridante and
Serse, the
pastiche Anaesthesia, also the oratorios
Theodora,
Messiah,
Belshazzar and
Israel in Egypt. == Literature ==