Atalanta (opera)
It is based upon the mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto (which is in Italian) being derived from the book La Caccia in Etolia by Belisario Valeriani.
Handel composed it for the London celebrations of the marriage in 1736 of Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George II, to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.
An enormous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers.
[2] Handel's spring season of 1736 was shorter than usual, probably because of these difficulties, but when the wedding of the Prince of Wales was announced he prepared an opera in celebration.
[2] Atalanta was a more light-hearted and celebratory work than many of his other opera seria, along the same lines as his very popular piece Il Pastor Fido which he had recently revived.
Poet Thomas Gray wrote to Horace Walpole: ...(in) the last act...there appears the Temple of Hymen with illuminations; there is a row of blue fires burning in order along the ascent to the temple; a fountain of fire spouts up out of the ground to the ceiling, and two more cross each other obliquely from the sides of the stage; on the top is a wheel that whirls always about, and throws out a shower of gold-colour, silver, and blue fiery rain.
King Meleagro of Aetolia has disguised himself as a shepherd, taking the pseudonym Tirsi, and is enjoying his life in the countryside away from the cares of state.
Meleagro overhears her musing on this unfortunate state of affairs and tries to make his identity known to her but he is painfully shy and so is she and so they do not manage to clear things up.
[4] Despite the generally light-hearted and celebratory nature of the piece, Handel's music also explores the darker moments of the various characters' emotional turmoil.
[2] The opera is scored for two oboes, bassoon, two horns, three trumpets, timpani, strings and continuo (cello, lute, harpsichord).
In the new season that autumn, it was revived "by Command of their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales" in celebration of whose wedding the work had been written, and who finally came to see it.
[2] Friend of Handel Thomas Harris wrote in a letter to a patron of Handel's, Lord Shaftesbury, that the royal couple had really come mainly to see the fireworks, which were not as spectacular as they had been in the first run of performances, saying that Atalanta: was performed to-night in order to give their royal Highnesses a view of ye Fire-works which went off with great Applause, tho' I don't think with that Splendour I have seen them formerly.
Dominique Labelle, soprano, Susanne Rydén, soprano, Cecile van de Sant, mezzo-soprano, Michael Slattery, tenor, Philip Cutlip, baritone, Corey McKern, baritone, Philharmonia Chorale, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan, conductor.
Katalin Farkas , soprano, Éva Bártfal-Barta, soprano, Éva Lax, contralto, János Bándi, tenor, Jószef Gregor, bass, László Polgár, basszus, Savaria Coral Ensemble, István Deák, Capella Savaria, Pál Németh, Nicholas McGegan, conductor.
