George Frideric Handel’s twenty year long domination of London opera began in 1720 with Radamisto, meaning that Partenope, which appeared in 1730, was at the midpoint of this golden period. The opera was extremely well received on its premiere, but it is about as far removed from opera seria as any of the composer’s works, and presents a challenge to any director who wishes to make sense of such a far-fetched story. English National Opera, however, has long been known as...

Many Wagner fans will rank Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as one of their favourite works of all time, but the real measure of its strength is that many an opera-goer who normally avoids Wagner like the plague will make a special exception for Die Meistersinger. Unlike virtually all of the composer’s other mature works, it is not about gods, grails, rings and potions, but rather flesh and blood human beings. By exposing all of the foibles and frailties of this strangest of...

Any world premiere at one of London’s major opera houses is an exciting occasion, but Ryan Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale was especially so given that it is based on a Shakespeare play that has seldom undergone the operatic treatment. There have been around a dozen works based upon the piece, including Max Bruch’s Hermione, Carlo Emanuele di Barbieri’s Perdita, ein Wintermärchen and John Harbison’s The Winter’s Tale, but that is a paltry...

Francesco Cilea is one of several Italian composers who might have been far better known today had they not lived at around the same time as Giacomo Puccini. As it is, their own considerable talents have tended to be eclipsed by those of the great composer to the extent that the only operas of Cilea’s that are performed with any regularity today are L’arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur. The latter was also the only one of the composer’s that was unequivocally acclaimed as a...

Based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto was a triumph when it premiered at La Fenice in Venice in 1851, and has remained one of the composer’s most frequently performed operas ever since. Its popularity is thoroughly deserved but might still be deemed interesting, given that it is a contender for the cruellest opera in the mainstream repertoire. While many works see the innocent suffer and die, there is usually a sense in which...

Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore of 1853 is based on Antonio García Gutiérrez’s play El trovador. Set in fifteenth century Spain it tells of the noble lady Leonora who is in love with the troubadour Manrico, but is herself loved by the Count di Luna, a nobleman in the service of the Prince of Aragon. The Count’s younger brother Garzia supposedly died in infancy when a gypsy was burnt at the stakefor allegedly bewitching him, and the charred body of a baby was...