Ariodante

After Aci e Galatea (1985), Giulio Cesare in Egitto (1989), Rodelinda (2010), and Rinaldo (2018), in its 50th edition, the Festival della Valle d’Itria celebrates Georg Friedrich Händel with the fifth performance of one of his operas. Focusing on the baroque repertoire, with productions of rarely heard and exceptionally beautiful titles, the festival presents the drama in three acts Ariodante (1735). With this title, the three-year residency of the baroque ensemble Modo Antiquo under the direction of specialist Federico Maria Sardelli concludes.

The opera, with an anonymous adaptation of a text by Antonio Salvi, Ginevra Principessa di Scozia (1708), is inspired by an episode from Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the great poet whose 550th birth anniversary is celebrated this year. It debuted on January 8, 1735, at the Covent Garden in London, opening the first operatic season held in that theater, without great success. After a few performances and three months on stage, it was not revived until the last century, when it began to attract increasing interest. Today, it is celebrated as one of Händel’s greatest masterpieces.