Concert Program/ Ensemble San Felice: "Handel - Rodrigo"

From the official Program Notes: Premiered in Florence in 1707, Rodrigo, a typical story of affairs of state and heart, was the first opera Handel composed during his youthful stay in Italy – his most urgent creative period, and the time when his distinctive musical style was forged and his reputation made. For many years it was known in incomplete form, and it has only been with the rediscovery of missing arias and recitatives in recent decades that it has re-emerged to take its rightful place in the performing canon of one of the greatest of all operatic geniuses. This semi-staged production, given in Alan Curtis’s reconstructed performing edition and featuring the Florentine Ensemble San Felice and an exciting all-Italian cast, offers what is still a surprisingly rare chance to hear one of the most vivid and glittering of Handel’s early works.