Ariodante
George Frideric Handel
If there could only be one surviving opera by Handel, it would surely be Ariodante, which is quite literally a masterpiece.
Franco Fagioli | Ariodante
Melissa Petit | Ginevra
Sarah Gilford | Dalinda
Luciana Mancini | Polinesso
Nicholas Phan | Lurcanio
Alex Rosen | King of Scotland
George Petrou | direction
Il Pomo d’Oro
Sung in Italian with French and English subtitles
Production Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
Ariodante, Handel’s twenty-ninth Italian opera, was the first operatic work to be specifically written by the composer for the new Covent Garden Opera House. Along with Alcina, which also dates from 1735, it is one of the musician’s last popular Italian works in London. Handel’s highly inventive approach to composition can be heard in every number, mainly in the writing for voices which blossoms with new means of expression, but also in the broadening of his musical vocabulary which has no compunction about drawing on the French style. Handel is at the peak of his art here with a perfect demonstration of lyric opera writing enriched by the subtlest of colour palettes.
Production Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
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