I had a feeling that the claim that I am about to postulate has been dealt with previously here, but I am quite unable to find the thread (if, indeed I am correct, always debatable, that last bit!) Therefore I am stating/re-stating it:

Handel's Messiah is very popular in the UK, and particularly at Christmas, at which time it is performed all over the country. I believe that it is NOT anywhere near as popular, anywhere else in Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world...please confirm or deny!

Very popular also in the US. I suppose the non-English speaking world finds the text daunting to sing. I did hear it sung in German once.

Ah! Many thanks for that, Juan. (I do wish that just one or two others would post in the 'Classical' section; I lose enthusiasm for posting from time to time here, there is so little movement...)

Hello Ritz. Handel's Messiah was performed here in Paris a few days before Christmas last year at one of our most prestigious central Paris theatres. I have read though, like you, that the work is more popular in the English speaking world though I've no idea why. I'll do a bit of research.

Cheers, Colin, & thanks for posting. Mrs Ritzmar, as a special treat has enrolled me in a course of six lectures at M/C University. They are being given by no-one other than the gentleman who taught music to me in school nearly 50 years ago! Great to see him again, but very strange to be sitting behind a desk and listening to him in that situation after such a long time...he is 79 now, but still as sharp as a pin.

Anyway, the theme of his lectures is the effect of travel and working in different countries had on various composers, their attitudes, compositional processes, exposure to alien influences, that sort of thing. Last week he covered Handel, and the question arose as to how popular 'Messiah' is in non-English speaking countries. Of course that opened another avenue of which English-speaking countries regularly performed it... (the US? Australia? Canada? New Zealand? South Africa?) None of us, including our venerable lecturer had recourse to this information, and so I decided to try AP to find out where 'Messiah' is regularly performed in Europe & the rest of the world.

Next lecture is this coming Thursday morning, so I will offer the information which has come to me in this thread so far, although I will be attending for a further five weeks, and anything gleaned in this time I will pass on, of course.

If FredPuli & Paul contribute, then that will be more or less the entire Answerpool team with any interest in 'classical' music doing their usual best...if only Bach, Chopin, Palestrina & Stravinsky had written 'favourite songs to get depressed over'
(http://answerpool.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/436604434/m/78...787602093#787602093) we would have many more enthusiastic posters.

Ah well, they did not do so, therefore that has to be that...

Ritz, every Christmas, the St. Louis Public Broadcasting Station has at least one showing of a concert. The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (second-oldest symphony orchestra in the United States after the New York Philharmonic and winner of 6 Grammys), used to perform the work along with the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus every year, but I am not sure if they still do it.

(And thanks...again)

Thanks very much, DG, that is exactly the sort of information I needed!
(...and, to your 'thankyou', you deserve it... ...)