Four years after the triumph of Rinaldo, his first opera for the London stage, George Frideric Handel presented at the King’s Theatre in London his latest creation: Amadigi di Gaula (HWV 11). Its successful premiere on May 25, 1715, led to multiple performances and various revisions over the next three seasons. The opera played in Hamburg as well between 1717 and 1720, under the title Oriana and with additional music by Reinhard Keiser. It would be more than 200 years before the work was heard again, however. Though filled with glorious music, Amadigi remains a relative rarity, perhaps because it calls for only four voices: two sopranos and two altos.

Praised by no less than Charles Burney, the great English music historian, for its invention and variety, Amadigi wowed audiences from the start with colorful music and magical stage effects. Perhaps its most spectacular moment, much commented upon in the London press, was an actual fountain at the beginning of Act II, which required the services of multiple plumbers. This production employed so many machines that audience members accustomed to walking onto the stage were warned not to do so, lest they injure themselves.

The story comes from a 14th-century epic about a chivalrous knight-errant named Amadigi, King of Gaul. This knight’s love for Oriana, daughter of the King of England, is fraught with challenges, not the least of which are wicked witches and friends who become enemies. Essentially a juicy tale about hapless nobles, it proved irresistible to the movers and shakers of French opera under Louis XIV, inspiring two tragédies en musique: Amadis de Gaule (1684), with words by Philippe Quinault and music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, and Amadis de Grèce (1699), with words by Antoine Houdar de La Motte and music by André Destouches.

The libretto for Handel’s setting, which differs somewhat from both predecessors, may have been penned by Giacomo Rossi, who fleshed out the story line of Rinaldo, or perhaps by Nicola Haym, a cellist and composer who likewise excelled in libretto adaptation. Its plot, as realized in our production, may be summarized as follows.

ACT I

Amadigi and his companion Dardano are trapped in the garden of the sorceress Melissa. As he plots his escape, Amadigi tries to convince Dardano to flee with him. He shares a picture of his beloved, Oriana, and Dardano realizes that he’s fallen for the same woman. Dardano decides to betray his friend and seeks out Melissa to warn her. While Amadigi ponders his fate in the garden alone, Melissa appears. When her declaration of love is rebuffed, she threatens him. Amadigi leaves in search of Oriana.

The tower where Oriana is held captive is in flames. Stopped by the fire, Amadigi learns that Dardano has become his rival. The outer structure collapses and Oriana is revealed. Believing they are free, the lovers rejoice, but Melissa and her minions arrive and snatch away Oriana, leaving Amadigi to rail at such cruelty.

ACT II

At the Fountain of True Love, a bereft Amadigi seeks comfort, but grief overtakes him, and he faints. Melissa appears with her prisoner Oriana, whose affections are misunderstood by Amadigi, and the two lovers fight before Oriana storms out. Amadigi‘s suicidal thoughts change to anger at Melissa, and they argue vociferously.

[INTERMISSION]

In Melissa’s palace Dardano broods until Melissa offers a ruse: she will transform him to look like Amadigi so that he may seduce Oriana. The scheme seems to work until the real Amadigi appears, and a duel ensues. Dardano dies, and a furious Melissa swears vengeance.

ACT III

Amadigi and Oriana plead for their lives, but Melissa, vowing revenge, summons the ghost of Dardano to help her. Her plan backfires as the spirit warns Melissa that the gods will not countenance such an injustice. She tries to kill Oriana but is magically restrained; in desperation, she stabs herself instead.

With the villainous sorceress vanquished, Amadigi and Oriana embrace, joyously united at last.

Strikingly, all four characters in this drama want just one thing: to be loved. This desire renders each vulnerable to betrayal and dramatic mischief of all kinds, from incongruous conflagrations to exotic spells. But even the most fantastic libretto and stagecraft cannot guarantee a memorable opera; one needs an equally magical score. Handel, a consummate man of the theatre, took up this task with evident relish.

His masterful music for the evil sorceress Melissa, for example, encourages us from the outset to sympathize with this scorned woman. Handel treats her rival Oriana with great tenderness, in music that is by turns heartfelt and eloquent. Dardano’s arias, by comparison, veer from the wildly energetic to the sumptuously doleful. For Amadigi, finally, Handel embraced fully the heroic mode while indulging sudden emotional swings with unanticipated twists and turns.

Like virtually all opera seria of this age, Amadigi di Gaula offers multiple options, with substitute arias sometimes offering more interesting options than first efforts. Ever the practical impresario, Handel borrowed some arias from Silla (1713) while reusing others original to Amadigi in Alcina (1735). A few years after its premiere, he even recycled Amadigi’s triumphant final aria (shorn of its vocal line) as a hornpipe in Water Music. Handel thereby reminded George I, as he sailed down the Thames on that long night in July 1717, what triumph over adversity sounds like.

© Matthew Dirst & Tara Faircloth