Flavio
It is also notable as a skillful blend of tragedy and comedy, both in the text and the music, and for being one of Handel's few operas to feature leading roles for all major voice categories of his day – soprano, contralto, castrato, tenor and bass.
Flavio has ordered the lovely Teodata to come to him and is working on seducing her when her father bursts into the room, protesting about the loss of his honour.
The King leaves Ugone with his daughter, who believes, mistakenly, that he must have discovered her clandestine relationship with Vitige and confesses all.
Lotario tells his daughter Emilia that her marriage to Guido is null and void and demands that she abandon him.
The older man scornfully accepts, feeling that his greater experience will allow an easy victory, but is mortally wounded.
Emilia and Ugone both go to the King, she demanding justice for her father's murder, he justifying his son's action by his vindication of the insult to him.
Vitige brings Teodata to the King and has to listen as Flavio declares she will be his real Queen, which makes him enraged with jealousy.
He sends for Emilia and tells her that he has followed her desire; he has had Guido decapitated for killing her father and in fact she can see the severed head right away.
He sends for Vitige and tells him that his punishment will be that he will have to marry the girl who he does not think is nice to look at, Teodata, and presents her to him.
So both pairs of lovers will marry, Ugone will go to Britain to take up his position as governor, and Flavio remain faithful to his wife.
A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers.
[9][10] Ottone, an opera by Handel presented for the Academy in January 1723, was the first time London audiences had seen the operatic superstars, castrato Senesino and soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, performing together in an opera, and had been an immense success, with demand for tickets far outstripping supply[2][11] Flavio, following Ottone in the same year and with the same leading singers, did not create such a sensation as Ottone had, although it was successful enough with audiences to be revived by Handel in a subsequent season.
[7] 18th century musicologist Charles Burney praised the aria " Amor, nel mio penar" written for Senesino as Guido, torn between love and duty, as "extremely pathetic" and the aria for Emilia, "Amante stravagante" became a popular success as a separate song with English words fitted to it as "See, see, my charmer flyes me".
"[7] Although a caricature, the contemporary engraving of Senesino on the left, Francesca Cuzzoni and castrato Gaetano Berenstadt on the right, provides valuable information about the visual aspect of the original performances of Handel operas.
Such costumes were worn by the leading men in Handel operas whether the setting was ancient Rome or Gothic Europe.
Cuzzoni, in contrast, wears a contemporary gown such as might have been suitable for presentation at court, with a dwarf to serve as her train-bearer.
