Word: armida
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...essentially a vehicle for Home, in a title role composed for a castrate. The outlines of Handel's opera are preserved in the plot, which concerns the struggle for the Holy Land between the Crusaders, led by Rinaldo, and the Saracens, under Argante (Ramey) and the sorceress Armida (Soprano Edda Moser). But Martin Katz, Home's longtime accompanist, has conflated the 1711 and 1731 versions, trimming the recitatives, shortening some arias, shuffling others and even adding a duet from Handel's Ad-meto. It may be argued that Katz is only following a convention to which Handel...
...turning up in the theater as well. La Vera Costanza (True Constancy) was given its American premiere in 1967 in Cleveland; L'incontro Improvviso (The Unforeseen Encounter), an "abduction" opera set in Cairo, was performed in concert version by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic in 1973. Armida, an opera seria set during the Crusades, was produced in New Hampshire last summer with the action updated to the Viet Nam War. Just a fortnight ago another major work, Orlando Paladino, was staged in Philadelphia...