Muzio Scevola
- Rossi, Nick. “Handel’s Muzio Scevola.” OQ3-3 (Autumn 1985): 17–38.
Paolo Rolli’s libretto was used by Filippo Amadei, Giovanni Bononcini, and
Handel. Reception at the Handel premiere in 1721 was good, but the opera
was not performed after November 1722. Manuscripts and editions are
described, and there are program notes on the opera.
Orlando
- Strohm, Reinhard. “Comic Traditions in Handel’s Orlando.” In Essays on
Handel(#953), 249–269.
Proposes that Handel’s experience in Naples in 1729 coincided with his plan
to produce Orlandoin London. He was impressed by the comic intermezzi he
saw there and by the singer Celestina Resse (later Gismondi), known as La
Celestina. Having decided to introduce comic elements into the story, he
advised his librettist Nicola Haym accordingly. Possibly La Celestina, who
went to London to sing for Handel, influenced Haym in his work. But in the
end it was Handel who created the “incredible combination of seemingly
diverse ideas and images”—his “decisive answer to Baroque comedy,” fusing
the comic, tragic, rational, magical, and pastoral.
Poro
- Cummings, Graham H. “The London Performances of Handel’s Opera Poro.”
In Konferenzbericht Halle: Probleme der Händelschen Oper, 62–81 (Halle:
Martin Luther Universität, 1982).
A full study of the libretto and Handel’s adaptation of it for the 1736–1737
season in London. Discussion of cast; good documentation. Cummings stud-
ied the opera further in his Ph.D. dissertation, “Handel’s Poro: An Edition and
Critical Study,” U. of Birmingham, 1984.
Radamisto
- Knapp, J. Merrill. “Handel, the Royal Academy of Music, and Its First Opera
Season in London (1720).” MQ45 (1959): 145–167.
A valuable commentary on Radamisto, given in the first season of the acad-
emy, is part of this useful account of the London operatic scene. Notes that
Handel was the chief musical figure at the academy from the outset, overshad-
owing Ariosto and Bononcini. Other productions of the season are described.
Rinaldo
991.Kubik, Reinhold. Händels “Rinaldo”: Geschichte, Werk, Wirkung.Neuhausen-
Stuttgart: Hänssler, 1982. 246p. ISBN 3-7751-0594-8. ML410 .H13 K8.
A thorough historical and technical study of the opera, covering the auto-
graph, borrowings, alterations, and reception. Many tables, musical examples,
and references. Bibliography, name index.- Price, Curtis. “English Traditions in Handel’s Rinaldo.” In Tercentenary
(#950), 120–135.
194 Opera