Handel’s Ariodante received around a dozen performances at Covent Garden when it was new in 1735, but it’s taken the best part of three centuries for the Royal Opera to get around to staging it again. To be fair it wasn’t done anywhere in Britain until it was resurrected by the Barber Institute in Birmingham in 1964.
Jetske Mijnssen’s production bridges the gap between the cultural expectations of 18th- and 21st-century audiences by distancing itself from stereotypical ideas about heroes and villains in favour of an insightful psychological approach. She asks whether her fun-loving heroine, Ginevra, can ever enjoy a truly loving relationship when she has been so cruelly betrayed by fiancé, father and sister (her maid in the libretto). That sister, Dalinda, may show remorse but she’s to suffer too. Does Ariodante himself fully mature? Or does his idea of love – neatly visualised by his dancing with the wedding dress – remain a fantasy? Mijnssen addresses all these questions with wit and acuity and her conclusions cast a dark cloud over the final celebrations.
