Like so many of Handel’s operas, it then languished in obscurity, and there is no record of Amadigi returning to the English stage until it was performed by Unicorn Opera at Abbey Hall, Abingdon in 1968.Īmadigi is a spectacular magic opera, in the mould of Rinaldo and Teseo, and advertisements promising eighteenth-century theatre-goers effects both magnificent and marvellous also issued a warning to ticket-buyers: ‘whereas there is a great many Scenes and Machines to be mov’d in this Opera, which cannot be done if Persons should stand upon the Stage (where they could not be without Danger), it is therefore hop’d no Body, even the Subscribers, will take it Ill that they must be deny’d Entrance on the Stage.’ ‘A production in which there is more invention, variety, and good composition, than in any one of the musical dramas of Handel which I have yet carefully and critically examined.’Ĭharles Burney’s glowing assessment of Amadigi di Gaula, Handel’s fifth London opera, was presumably shared by those who enjoyed the first production of this youthful and exuberant work at the Haymarket Theatre in May 1715, for it was revived in both 17, and, before the decade was out, had travelled to Hamburg for three performance runs.
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