Handel:Arminio

Handel composed Arminio in the fall of 1736 during an "average" phase, but the opera contains plenty of musical thrills and is historically significant. The 1736-37 season was the fullest and most varied programme Handel had yet mounted in London, containing oratorios, an ode, a pasticcio, several new operas and lots of revivals of earlier works. Such unprecedented ambition was a strategic coup de grace against Handel's rivals, The Opera of the Nobility, who gave their final performance on 11 June 1737 and subsequently collapsed. Perhaps the frantic activity contributed to Handel's serious illness in the summer of 1737, often described as a paralytic stroke. Unlike Italian opera in London, Handel soon recovered and went on to yet greater achievements.

The criticism that the plots of Handel's operas are confusing is usually unfair, but Arminio genuinely does have a difficult libretto that fails to explain its incidents or develop its plot. Arminio is held prisoner by the Roman invader Varo, a reasonably philanthropic conqueror who loves Arminio's wife Tusnelda. All three characters find themselves in potential dramatic situations that had elsewhere drawn the best from Handel's imagination, but on this occasion the conventional libretto fails to ignite genius with sufficient consistency. Tusnelda's brother Sigismondo and Arminio's sister Ramise are also in love, thus creating a quartet of genetic inbreeding that would make most royal houses envious. Unfortunately for his children, Arminio's father-in-law Segeste strikes an alliance with the Roman conquerors, and therefore has designs to bring about the rebellious Arminio's unpleasant death. After the Romans are defeated in battle, the most dysfunctional family in baroque operatic history suddenly become friends again, a paradox that even Handel seems to note in his minor key finale.

In an opera in which the librettist cannot decide who the hero actually is, Handel gives all the best arias to Sigismondo. This role was originally sung by the soprano castrato Conti, one of only three singers for whom Handel ever wrote a top C. It occurs in the spectacular Act II aria "Quella fiamma," which is, along with Sigismondo's other arias, superbly sung by Dominique Labelle, who makes her long overdue debut in a major Handel role on disc. Labelle has an agile voice that sounds natural and unforced; her expression of the Italian text and ornamentation are exemplary. Geraldine McGreevy sings the role of Tusnelda with determination, and Vivica Genaux sings effectively as Arminio. Manuela Custer sings Ramise with plenty of verve, and it is gratifying to observe that Curtis has cast distinctive singers in each role. Only tenor Luigi Petroni is disappointing in his Act III aria "Mira il ciel", a lovely, gentle piece with horns and oboes that Handel's tenor John Beard surely must have sung with more eloquence and presence.

The Italian group Il Complesso Barocco performs with as much vitality and excitement as any fashionable baroque ensemble, but with the distinction that Alan Curtis tends to conduct them in tempos that Handel indicated. Curtis prepared a new edition of Arminio for this recording after studying the autograph manuscript first-hand. Although no performance should be regarded as definitive, it is impossible to imagine Arminio getting a better chance to stake its claim in the canon.