Handel was at the top of his game when he composed Ariodante, pushing gently at the boundaries of operatic convention, and writing some of his most captivating music. It had its premiere in 1735 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, where the Royal Opera House now stands. Then it was positively demanded that composers and librettists magic up a happy ending from even the most tragic story, sending audiences away uplifted, and Handel duly delivered. However, audiences for the Royal Opera’s new production – surprisingly, its first since that premiere, unless you count a streamed concert during lockdown – might come away with more contradictory feelings.
The director Jetske Mijnssen, making her Covent Garden debut, is not convinced by that forced happy ending – which, after her staging of Wagner’s Parsifal at Glyndebourne this summer, won’t come as a big surprise. Like the latter piece, here again is a dysfunctional royal family. We’re in the modern palace of a besuited, ailing king; the five children playing at weddings around the dining table during the overture reappear as adults, becoming his two daughters and their three suitors.
