A funky comedy of oversized egos in a dysfunctional First Family brought the 24-year-old Handel his breakthrough in Italy's opera scene. And with it, the world.
Lively melodies and hair-raising turf wars made him "everybody's darling" in the "Las Vegas" of the 18th century - Venice was Europe's number one amusement metropolis at the time. His nickname "Il caro Sassone - Our dear Saxon" came about with "Agrippina". "In every music-free second, clapping and shouts of 'Viva il caro Sassone - Long live the dear Saxon' and other applause too exaggerated to quote here shook the theater," reported John Mainwaring: "Everyone was stunned by the grandeur and sublimity of his style, for no one here had ever heard such powerful harmonies and such dense modulations, and both combined in such a magical way."
But for Walter Sutcliffe, the textbook is also one of the best there is. It shows a society driven by greed for power, vanity, cunning and stupidity in complicated and unpredictable interactions characterized by many coincidences. Handel's librettist Vincenzo Grimani, himself a scion of one of the country's leading families, knew his way around. He was a cardinal, imperial Habsburg ambassador to the Vatican, viceroy of Naples and entrepreneur in Venice. His book is richer in characters and more complex than any other that the composer from Halle set to music.
Ks. Romelia Lichtenstein will shine as the Queen Mother, star conductor Laurence Cummings, long-time director of the Göttingen Handel Festival, is looking forward to this young, cheeky Handel, who was first brought back to life in Halle in 1943.
Premiere June 6, 2025
Further performances: June 8, 13 and 15, 2025
