figures of Roderick and Julian both appear, the invading Moors they were responsible for letting in do not and the drama ends with a lively coro, the customary closing ensemble for all the singers that rounded off a Baroque opera. There is some distinguished poetry here, and among two or three highly effective dramatic moments the finest is undoubtedly the scene in Act III when, as Giuliano and Evanco are about to kill the tyrant Rodrigo, Florinda rushes in to claim vengeance for herself and is in turn stopped by the appearance of her infant son in the arms of Esilena, brandishing the child as an object of moral blackmail.
The autograph manuscript of Rodrigo is incomplete. Evidence from the printed libretto, however, under its title Vincer se stesso è la maggior vittoria , suggests that the original concept had been significantly adjusted by the time of its first performance. Several arias were replaced,another was reassigned and a duet disappeared altogether. It has since been possible to reconstruct the entire piece with the help of early manuscript copies of Handelâs works and, in one case, through an inspired musicological conjecture linked to The Triumph of Time and Truth (1758) an English-language recension of Il Trionfo del Tempo.
If not a masterpiece, Rodrigo marks an interesting transitional phase in Handelâs successful absorption of the dominant Italian operatic style. The score seems to have been assembled in rather a hurry, using an overture (with dance suite attached) possibly composed while he was still in Germany and a number of airs adapted, sometimes without much regard for their change of context, from various recently written cantatas. For the first time Handel found himself engaging directly with the newest features of Italian opera seria, including a more flexible recitative style, than he had used when writing operas in Hamburg, and the growing convention of the exit aria, in which the drama allowed the singer, after applause for vocal display, to leave the stage (over half the arias here observe this convention). He could also reveal the mastery he had acquired, through cantata writing, of the da capo air, the standard operatic unit of the day, with its A and B sections and chances for ornamented reprise. Though several of the arias may seem to reflect the idiom of Giacomo Perti, the currently approved Florentine model, the prevailing influence is that Roman manner which was to provide a permanent stylistic basis for Handelâs invention. The recitatives, however, are nervously handled and the role of Esilena is burdened periodically with prolix declamatory paragraphs.
A glance at Rodrigo suggests that Handel had made a careful study of Alessandro Scarlatti in particular. The two could not have met at this time, however, as Scarlatti was in Urbino during the summer and autumn of 1707, and writing miserable begging letters from there to Prince Ferdinando, depicting himself and his family, accurately enough, it seems, as being on the bitterest edge of poverty: Ferdinando sent a remittance accompanied by a curt, though polite reply. The relationship between patron and composer, which a year before had brought Il Gran Tamerlano to the Pratolino stage as the fifth of Scarlattiâs works to be given there, now cooled disastrously, as the Prince looked to Giacomo Perti for the new Pratolino opera, Dionisio, Re di Portogallo , to a libretto by Salvi. As Sosarme it was to be set by Handel in 1732.
None of Handelâs surviving music was provided for Ferdinando himself,though the Rodrigo libretto, omitting the names of both its author and the composer, notes that the work was performed âunder the protection of the Most Serene Prince of Tuscanyâ. Political analogies between the operaâs plot and the current political situation in Spain have recently been suggested, and Ferdinando, whose mother was a French princess and whose father, Grand Duke Cosimo, was pro-Bourbon, no doubt
The autograph manuscript of Rodrigo is incomplete. Evidence from the printed libretto, however, under its title Vincer se stesso è la maggior vittoria , suggests that the original concept had been significantly adjusted by the time of its first performance. Several arias were replaced,another was reassigned and a duet disappeared altogether. It has since been possible to reconstruct the entire piece with the help of early manuscript copies of Handelâs works and, in one case, through an inspired musicological conjecture linked to The Triumph of Time and Truth (1758) an English-language recension of Il Trionfo del Tempo.
If not a masterpiece, Rodrigo marks an interesting transitional phase in Handelâs successful absorption of the dominant Italian operatic style. The score seems to have been assembled in rather a hurry, using an overture (with dance suite attached) possibly composed while he was still in Germany and a number of airs adapted, sometimes without much regard for their change of context, from various recently written cantatas. For the first time Handel found himself engaging directly with the newest features of Italian opera seria, including a more flexible recitative style, than he had used when writing operas in Hamburg, and the growing convention of the exit aria, in which the drama allowed the singer, after applause for vocal display, to leave the stage (over half the arias here observe this convention). He could also reveal the mastery he had acquired, through cantata writing, of the da capo air, the standard operatic unit of the day, with its A and B sections and chances for ornamented reprise. Though several of the arias may seem to reflect the idiom of Giacomo Perti, the currently approved Florentine model, the prevailing influence is that Roman manner which was to provide a permanent stylistic basis for Handelâs invention. The recitatives, however, are nervously handled and the role of Esilena is burdened periodically with prolix declamatory paragraphs.
A glance at Rodrigo suggests that Handel had made a careful study of Alessandro Scarlatti in particular. The two could not have met at this time, however, as Scarlatti was in Urbino during the summer and autumn of 1707, and writing miserable begging letters from there to Prince Ferdinando, depicting himself and his family, accurately enough, it seems, as being on the bitterest edge of poverty: Ferdinando sent a remittance accompanied by a curt, though polite reply. The relationship between patron and composer, which a year before had brought Il Gran Tamerlano to the Pratolino stage as the fifth of Scarlattiâs works to be given there, now cooled disastrously, as the Prince looked to Giacomo Perti for the new Pratolino opera, Dionisio, Re di Portogallo , to a libretto by Salvi. As Sosarme it was to be set by Handel in 1732.
None of Handelâs surviving music was provided for Ferdinando himself,though the Rodrigo libretto, omitting the names of both its author and the composer, notes that the work was performed âunder the protection of the Most Serene Prince of Tuscanyâ. Political analogies between the operaâs plot and the current political situation in Spain have recently been suggested, and Ferdinando, whose mother was a French princess and whose father, Grand Duke Cosimo, was pro-Bourbon, no doubt
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