Ariodante

If Handel were still alive, he would be called resilient. Indeed, in 1734-1735, as the public began to turn away from him and his contract with the King’s Theater came to an end, the composer began writing Ariodante, an opera seria intended to inaugurate the brand new Theater Royal in Covent Garden. As if galvanized by adversity, he delivers a radiant work, where the virtuosity of the music harmonizes with the simplicity of the libretto – taken from an episode of Orlando furioso by Ariosto. The story tells of the love between the princess of Scotland, Ginevra, and Ariodante, to whom she is promised. But a plot orchestrated by the traitor Polinesso has her accused of infidelity. If Handel’s most beautiful lament, “Scherza infida”, is present in this inspired score, the entire work is also full of virtuoso arias and exudes theatrical intelligence. Enough to stimulate the inspiration of Robert Carsen, who signs, after his anthology Alcina at the Paris National Opera, the new staging of Ariodante, also composed in 1735.