Imeneo Delights
12 Opera con Brio, LLC March 2013 Opera con Brio Richard B. Beams London Handel Festival, 2013 Handel’s Imeneo Delights Handel’s penultimate opera, Imeneo, received a sparkling performance Rosmene and Clomiri, sent overseas to participate in rites for the in March at the thirty-sixth London Handel Festival, a performance goddess Ceres. Not to worry. Imeneo (disguised as a woman to be that confirmed both the theatrical viability and musical worth of this nearer his beloved Rosmene) had accompanied them and soon defeats neglected Mozartian jewel. Like Mozart’s drama giocoso, Cosi fan the pirates, rescues the sisters and returns them to their native Athens. Tutte, Handel’s “operetta” (as he called it) involves a romantic By operetta convention, Rosmene is honor-bound to marry the man quadrangle revolving around the who rescued her, assuming he so issue of marriage. Since Imeneo chooses – which he does. (The (aka Hymen) is the Greek god of younger sister, Clomiri, is smitten marriage, opportunity abounds for by Imeneo, but to no avail.) mirth and frivolity to mesh with Naturally, the complication is that sentiment, bringing to the fore the Rosmene’s heart belongs to touch of irony latent in the libretto. another, her betrothed, Tirinto. The With Handel’s music expressing only other character in the opera, the emotional depth so often the girls’ pompous father, Argenio, beneath the comic surface, this harangues Rosmene mercilessly lively production wonderfully about her duty. Eventually she caught the “tinta” of the work, as gives in – although it is clear from well as Handel’s tongue-in-cheek Handel’s music that his sympathies attitude towards the libretto.
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