Opera on 3

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Music: Classical: Opera

Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Handel's Ariodante

Handel's Ariodante

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Handel's Ariodante

Handel's Ariodante recorded at the Royal Opera House.

Handel's Ariodante recorded at the Royal Opera House, with Paula Murrihy in the title role.

Andrew McGregor presents Handel's Ariodante, recorded at the Royal opera House last week, with expert commentary by Suzanne Aspden. 

Continuing its celebration of the operas Handel wrote for Covent Garden, The Royal Opera presents Ariodante in concert. Ariodante was the first opera written by Handel for the first theatre on the current Royal Opera House site in 1735 and has not been performed at Covent Garden since. 
Set in medieval Scotland and based on a sixteenth-century epic poem, the same source as Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Ariodante tells the story of a prince, in love with the daughter of the King, who is driven to despair by a false accusation of his loved one’s infidelity and finally reunited with her when the treachery is revealed.
During the interval, Catherine Fletcher, one of Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers, looks at the origins of the opera’s plot in the chivalric romances of the Italian Renaissance. 

Ariodante ..... Paula Murrihy (Mezzo-soprano) 
Ginevra ..... Chen Reiss (Soprano) 
Rè di Scozia ..... Gerald Finley (Bass) 
Sophie Bevan (Soprano)
Iestyn Davies (Countertenor)
Ed Lyon (Tenor)
Royal Opera House Orchestra
Royal Opera House Chorus
Christian Curnyn (Conductor)

SYNOPSIS
Prince Ariodante and Princess Ginevra, the daughter of the King of Scotland, are in love. When Polinesso, who wants the throne for himself, deceives Ariodante into thinking that Ginevra has betrayed him, everyone thinks Ariodante has thrown himself into the sea and Ginevra, distraught, is imprisoned for her infidelity.

Polinesso offers to champion Ginevra but is defeated in public combat by Ariodante’s brother Lurcanio who, intent on avenging his brother’s apparent death, challenges any other champions to come forward. A knight with his face hidden defends Ginevra's honour before revealing himself as Ariodante.

A courtier brings news that the dying Polinesso confessed to his treachery. The King hurries to free his daughter and she is reunited with Ariodante to much celebration.

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