VIVALDI : ORLANDO FURIOSO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 21st of June 2009 at 3 - 6.10 pm

INTRODUCTION (Wikipedia)
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO: A copy of the libretto is available on the Wikipedia site (see Introduction above). Beware: click and a 33-page pdf will arrive! Italian text only, no subtitles! I copied it into a document and reduced it to a mere ten pages, two columns on each.

VIVALDI: Orlando furioso, an opera in three acts
Orlando........................ Romina Basso
Alcina........................... Manuela Custer
Angelica........................ Sylva Pozzer
Bradamante.................. Anna Rita Gemmabella
Medoro........................ Jordi Domenech
Ruggiero....................... Xavier Sabata
Astolfo.......................... Lorenzo Regazzo
Venice Baroque Orch/Andrea Marcon
(recorded in the Parco della Musica, Rome by Italian Radio)

Why was Orlando furious?
We find out in Act 2: Orlando loves the angelic angel-like (I have momentarily forgotten her name, see above, no not in Heaven, on the list of characters), but she is more attracted to Medoro, and seeing Orlando's jealousy she pretends that Medoro is her brother. To get him out of the way, she sends him to fight a monster guarding an elixir of life. The lovers sneak away into the forest and plight their troth, inscribing their vows in the bark of trees, hers on a laurel (alloro), his on a myrtle (mirto). When Orlando arrives at the amorous spot, he reads the runes and ruins the trees in his fury. (Doing damage to trees is against my principles, but I am hurt when they do harm to me: BONZOZ). Raging in the temple of Hecate he fights the statues and thereby destroys the power of the wicked witch, Alcina (Handel has a whole opera named after her, remember); subsequently she catches him napping and tries to kill him, but she is prevented by the other pair of lovers (Ruggiero, whom she wants for herself, and Bradamante, who had disguised herself as a man and also had Alcina fall for her). Orlando cools down and gives his blessing to Medoro and ... Angelica.

Antonio Vivaldi, the red priest, put this opera together in 1727 with a libretto by Grazio Braccioli, based on Ariosto's poem Orland Furioso; in 1714 he had also composed what some people would mistakenly call a 'prequel', from the same source; in Orlando finto pazzo our hero is getting in shape for his authentic rage with some counterfeit madness. Read about it elsewhere.

http://operawonk.blogspot.com/2007/10/vivaldi-orlando-finto-pazzo.html