Agrippina

Written in the latter part of the three years that a young Georg Friedrich Händel spent in Italy, Agrippina is developed around the conspiracy that the mother of Nero was scheming to put into place so that her son could seize the position occupied by the Emperor Claudius. The libretto, based on a free interpretation of an ancient Roman story, is plagued with political intrigues and a good dose of black humor, cynicism and irony. Much of what is included in the opera proceeds from the music that the composer had already written previously: only five of the arias are new compositions.

This, far from eliminating interest in the score, makes evident the capacity of the musician to select, combine, and complement ideas already conceived, placing them in a brilliant way to the service of the plot of the work. Agrippina is an outstanding summary, more than a zenith, of the Händel’s Italian compositions. In this work we can already see the unmistakable quill of the composer, but at the same time we witness a work full of imagination in which his thirst for experimenting can be glimpsed. His première in Venice had already achieved a thunderous success, and contributed to nourish a reputation which would continue in irrepressible ascent upon his arrival to London.