Handel’s Orlando is considered one of his finest operas. The tale is from Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, in which the magician Zoroastro urges Orlando to pursue glorious martial deeds, and ignore amorous ambitions. But Orlando has an obsessive love for Angelica, though she loves Prince Medoro. Orlando goes mad with jealousy, almost killing Angelica and Medoro. But Zoroastro intervenes to save the day and Orlando’s sanity returns. “Let all learn from Orlando that reason is often destroyed by love,” sings Zoroastro, pointing out the moral in case we had missed it.
So five voices, with a fairly even apportionment of music, and a small orchestra (no trumpets, timps or flutes), make Orlando well suited to concert presentation, even though the libretto booklet adds all the Baroque stage spectacle we don’t see, including dramatic scene changes easy for a magician to conjure; “Zoroastro waves his wand and guardian spirits carry away the mountain.” The singers had no music stands and moved around the performing space. Orlando grabs the arm of a back desk violinist when he “enters leading the Princess Isabella” (there is no Isabella here, a mute role). Romantically carving names on a tree, Medoro scribbles on the largest piece of wood nearby, the long neck of the theorbo.
The cast was a strong one, steeped in Baroque style. Matthew Brook was authoritative as Zoroastro, a role written for the extraordinary Montagnana, a prodigious bass whom Handel had in his company that season. Attired here in a magus-like black, Zoroastro is given the opening aria (“Renounce love and follow glory!”) normally reserved for the titular hero. Brook was excellent, despite some low notes which he did not quite invest with the basso profondo weight Handel might have expected 300 years ago. But Montagnana’s more surprising skill was in coloratura, and Handel kept back that display for Zoroastro’s final aria, where Brook was very impressive – magic indeed.
Iestyn Davies brought his familiar qualities to the title role, not least to Orlando’s remarkable Act 2 mad scene. No template da capo aria here (too normal and sane), but a scena with seven different tempi and five time signatures, with a recurring dance measure, even though the singer imagines he is descending to hell. The countertenor voice is an otherworldly one, and his singing had an eeriness suited to the far side of the Styx. When Orlando “sees” Proserpina weeping, Davies sang “even in hell someone weeps for love” with great pathos.
The three female voices were remarkable. Anna Dennis sang Angelica with, well, angelic purity, especially in “Verdi piante”, while the coloratura of “Non potrà drimi ingrata” in the same act had a flexibility to match its string accompaniment. As Dorinda, Rachel Redmond brought similar skills and equally pure tone, best heard in her pastoral lament in siciliano rhythm “Se mi rivolgo al prato”, adding a hint of melancholy using just vocal colour. As Medoro, mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert almost stole the honours from her soprano colleagues in “Verdi allori”, so luminous was her singing. In their Act 1 trio, they blended to produce another vocal highlight.
There is nothing Laurence Cummings does not know about conducting Handel opera – he is currently directing Glyndebourne’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto – and he led from the harpsichord with his customary control of pace and mood. What a group the Academy of Ancient Music is; the strings’ athletic playing, the tang of the oboes, the pair of dreamy violas d’amore for Orlando’s ‘falling asleep’ aria, all made their mark on this finale to the ensemble's splendid 50th anniversary season.
