Handel: Lotario.(Sound Recording Review)

Kermes, Mingardo, H. Summers, Prina; Davislim, Priante; Il Complesso Barocco, Curtis. Text and translation. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 82876-58797-2 (2)

Now that Lotario has received its first recording (with minuscule cuts), there are only a couple of Handel operas remaining for CD premieres. It's hard to say why this work has fallen through the cracks, but Lotario was a flop in 1729, when Handel used it to open the season of his newly revamped Royal Academy of Music, with star singers fresh from Italy. After nine performances, the production was withdrawn.

The libretto is an adaptation of Adelaide, a work Handel had recently heard in Venice, with music by Orlandini, and the plot involves some of the same characters as Handel's earlier Ottone. While Lotario himself is sympathetic but bland, the characters of the scheming matriarch, Matilde, and her intended victim, Adelaide, are fully drawn and offer ample opportunity for theatrical expression.

Perhaps because the troupe of singers was new to Handel and he had not yet learned their exploitable vocal strengths, the music, on first hearing, seems to lack the heart-stopping adagios or sensational larynx-busting showpieces we expect. Yet the arias are consistently well crafted, and after several hearings their beauty and expressiveness take effect. (Never one to waste material, Handel later lifted whole pieces from Lotario for revivals of Rinaldo, Rodelinda and other works.)

For the overture, Handel cleverly uses a ground bass, with varied instrumentation and melodic contours, and the arias concluding Acts I and II (always places for strong musical statements from Handel) are excellent: the heroine's defiant "Scherza in mar la navicella" and the hero's ...