Programs · Episode

HANDEL: Orlando

Program: At the Opera
Aired: Saturday, December 8, 2018 @ 6:00 pm
Hosted by Lisa Simeone

Ariosto's 16th-century epic Orlando Furioso, centered on the lovesick lunacy of a crusader knight, inspired an astonishing number of operas, but none with more spectacular music than this 1733 drama by Handel. AT THE OPERA presents Handel's vivid drama in in two recordings made nearly 25 years apart. First, it's a 1989 recording led by Christopher Hogwood, with countertenor James Bowman in the title role.  Also, from 2013, we'll hear Bejun Mehta as Orlando, in a recording led by René Jacobs.

MORE ABOUT THE OPERA:

If George Frederick Handel had composed Orlando Furioso a couple of centuries earlier, a poet named Ariosto might have gone looking for the nearest copyright lawyer, to claim his own share of the action. 

There was a time when bestselling writers were among the hottest celebrities on the scene. But when the stories those writers created started turning up in more high-tech forms of entertainment, things began to change. 

For example, when you think of Gone with the Wind, are you thinking of a book, or a movie? Probably a movie. The 1939 film classic starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh was one of the biggest Hollywood hits of all time, eventually overshadowing the Margaret Mitchell bestseller on which it was based — both in the entertainment industry's limelight, and on the bottom line. 

Still, there was a time when authors were even less fortunate when it came to adaptations of their work. Consider what the 16th-century writer Ludovico Ariosto might have hauled in had the new, cutting-edge art form of opera been invented just a few decades earlier. 

In 1516, Ariosto came up with an epic poem called Orlando Furioso, filled with passion, violence, mystery and magic. It was an immediate hit and it made Ariosto famous — at least for a while. But the poet died in 1533, so he wasn't around to benefit when opera composers did something for his poem that seldom happens when books by modern authors inspire films: Today's hit novels seldom inspire more than one successful movie adaptation, while Ariosto's Orlando has led to so many operas that it's hard to keep track of them all.

Ariosto's epic began inspiring operas in the 1620s, and dozens of composers have since climbed onto the Orlando bandwagon. Vivaldi wrote a version that borrows the poem's title, as well as its story. In the next century, Rossini and Haydn also wrote Ariosto-based operas. But it was Handel who took the greatest advantage of the epic's popularity. He wrote three operas indebted to Ariosto's magnum opus, beginning in 1733 with a drama that's simply called Orlando. (The other two, Ariodante and Alcina, were composed just two years later.)

 Handel's Orlando premiered at the King's Theatre in London. It ran for just 10 performances, in part because of a hotly contested, box office rivalry. In the original production, the title role was sung by the castrato Senesino, a true superstar of his time. But Handel's opera company was in a heated attendance battle with a competing outfit, and not long after the opera opened Senesino defected to the other side — leaving Handel without his main attraction. 

On World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents the opera in recordings featuring two great singers of our own time. To start, from 1989, countertenor James Bowman is Orlando, with conductor Christopher Hogwood. Then, in a 2013 recording, René Jacobs leads a cast headed by countertenor Bejun Mehta. 

FEATURED RECORDINGS: 

Christopher Hogwood, conductor 

Academy of Ancient Music 

CAST: James Bowman (Orlando); Arleen Auger (Angelica); Catherine Robbin (Medoro); Emma Kirkby (Dorinda); David Thomas (Zoroastro) L'Oiseau-Lyre 430845

René Jacobs, conductor 

B'Rock Baroque Orchestra 

CAST: Bejun Mehta (Orlando); Sophie Karthäuser (Angelica); Kirstina Hammarström (Medoro); Sunae Im (Dorinda); Konstantin Wolff (Zoroastro)

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