04 Feb Press Release: Starstruck

Rising Star Soprano Hannah De Priest Beams in Starstruck

“As a kindly star in heaven placates the wrath of Neptune,
So in the honest and beautiful soul will reason restrain passion.”
– from Apollo e Dafne

CLEVELAND – Les Délices closes out its 2025-26 Concert Season “Metamorphosis” with three live performances of Starstruck (April 24-26), a brilliant all-Handel program featuring rising star soprano Hannah De Priest performing excerpts from Apollo e Dafne and a show-stopping motet for soprano and ensemble, Silete venti. These performances also celebrate the release of Les Délices’ latest recording Arcadian Dreams featuring Hannah De Priest (released March 13 on the AVIE label).

Les Délices will give three performances of Starstruck this April 24, 25, and 26 in Akron, Cleveland Heights, and Rocky River. Single tickets ($10 for students, $28 for general admission, and $45 for preferred seating) are available now for all dates.

Hannah De Priest: a Rising Star with Cleveland Connections

Featured as “New Artist of the Month” in the March 2026 issue of Musical America, soprano Hannah De Priest is a rising star with strong Cleveland ties. Once a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University, the young soprano is now an in-demand Baroque opera singer of international renown. Recent appearances include multiple lead roles with the Boston Early Music Festival and concerts with Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, and Ars Lyrica Houston, among many others. During the pandemic, De Priest recorded two acclaimed concert films with Les Délices: Bewitched (2020) and Song of Orpheus (2021). In 2023, she joined the ensemble for their debut on the Boston Early Music Festival mainstage for a “breakout” performance of French Baroque cantatas. In Starstruck, De Priest will show off dazzling coloratura in Silete venti and long, lyric lines in arias from Apollo e Dafne. Says Debra Nagy, “I’ve enjoyed working with Hannah so much and she’s showed tremendous range across the different projects that we’ve developed together for Les Délices’ audiences. Hannah is the complete package. She’s got fabulous stage presence and she brings power and excitement to virtuosic moments, yet she can also transmit slower, emotionally-charged arias with deep tenderness and affection.”

Additional artists performing in Starstruck include Artistic Director Debra Nagy (oboe), violinists Shelby Yamin and Laura Lutzke, violist Kate Goddard, cellist Rebecca Landell, and harpsichordist Mark Edwards.

Thunderstruck by Handel

Handel began his career as a prodigious young talent in Italy. The 24-year-old’s work was ravenously consumed by the Venetian public: “They were thunderstruck with the grandeur and sublimity of his style: for never had they known till then all the powers of harmony and modulation so closely arrayed, and so forcibly combined…” Starstruck brims with Handel’s youthful energy from this concert’s first notes to its last: we open with a vivacious but rarely-heard Concerto Grosso, enjoy the intimacy and vigor of a trio sonata for two violins, and conclude the program with the concerto-style overture and glorious Alleluia of Silete Venti.

A Return to Reason

In our present moment of inflamed politics and heated emotions, Handel’s transporting music makes a strong argument for restoring calm and returning to reason. Audiences may recall the myth of Apollo and Daphne, in which the god Apollo tries in vain to seduce the young nymph Daphne. Rather than succumb to Apollo’s bullying behavior, Daphne’s unshakable virtue and resilient faith result in a powerful transformation.

Similarly, the opening lines of Silete venti interrupt its exuberant overture with a command: “Be silent, winds!” The achingly beautiful arias that follow serve as a balm for the spirit, reminding us that even amidst the most violent storms—whether mythical or modern—there is a path back to balance and pastoral peace.

Celebrating Arcadian Dreams CD Release

These concerts accompany the release of Les Délices’ latest album, Arcadian Dreams, on the AVIE label. Arcadian Dreams also features soprano Hannah De Priest and music by Handel, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Louis Lefevre, and Tomaso Albinoni. Debra Nagy recalls, “I remember rehearsing onstage in Boston’s Jordan Hall with Les Délices in 2023 and thinking: ‘Hannah is sounding amazing. Les Délices needs to record her debut CD as soon as possible – before someone else beats us to it!’” The album was recorded in the fall of 2024 and will be released on March 13, 2026. Arcadian Dreams invites listeners into a series of intimate musical dramas, from Rameau’s vivid portrayal of a faithful shepherd’s sacrifice to Handel’s Mi Palpita il cor, filled with thinly-veiled eroticism and yearning. The recording also spotlights a little-known cantatailles of Thomas-Louis Bourgeois and Louis Antoine Lefebvre, which paint lush portraits of the Baroque obsession with nature and desire. Signed copies of the album will be available for purchase at live performances of Starstruck. 

EVENT DETAILS

Starstruck
“Magnetic” soprano Hannah De Priest shines in a Handelian showcase

Friday, April 24, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Westminster Presbyterian Akron
1250 W Exchange St, Akron, OH 44313

Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 4:00 pm
A pre-concert talk begins at 3:15 pm
Heights Theater
2781 Euclid Heights Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH

Sunday, April 26, 2026 at 4:00 pm
A pre-concert talk begins at 3:15 pm
West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
20401 Hilliard Blvd, Rocky River, OH 44116

This concert will be filmed and available to stream for $20 online May 22 – June 21 on Les Délices’ VHX platform.

ABOUT HANNAH DE PRIEST

Hannah De Priest is a fearless performer especially renowned for her “masterful” (Olyrix) performances of Baroque repertoire. Consistently described as a “standout” and praised for her “bright, ideally-focused sound, allied to a probing expressive intelligence” (Chicago Classical Review), the young soprano enjoys a fast-rising career in North America and Europe. This recording with Les Délices marks her debut album. Recent highlights include debuts with the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra (Bach’s Johannes-Passion), the Innsbruck Early Music Festival (Gilde, L’amazzone corsara), and her Kennedy Center debut with Opera Lafayette (Serpina, La servante maîtresse). She enjoys a close relationship with the Boston Early Music Festival and has performed lead roles across multiple productions with the company. Hannah has earned acclaim at numerous international competitions, winning 2nd Prize at the Cesti Competition for Baroque Opera in 2021. She is also a laureate of the London Handel Competition, the Handel Aria Competition, Le Concours Corneille, the Bethlehem Bach Festival, and the Luminarts Cultural Foundation Competition.