Admeto. Italian Opera composed by George Frideric Handel and first performed at the Haymarket Theatre in London in 1727. George Frideric Handel (German Georg Friedrich Händel), (February 23, 1685 – April 14, 1759) was a German Baroque music composer who lived much of his life in England, a leading composer of concerti grossi, operas and oratorios. ...
Admeto, re di Tessaglia was Handel's most popular opera, running for a record-breaking 19 performances in the early months of 1727.
As good as the music is, it seems likely that a further attraction was the Academy's controversial employment of Europe's two leading prima donnas, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni-a PR gambit that turned sour when their increasingly bitter rivalry culminated, a few months later, in a shrieking onstage brawl during a performance of Bononcini's Astianatte.
Admeto's libretto comprises an uneasy mixture of supernatural tragedy, based on Euripedes' Alcestis, and a typically Baroque farrago of switched portraits and heroines in disguise.
Indeed, Admeto was one of the operas whose reception was shaped by the public’s fascination with and construction of the rivalries among the Italian singers.
As Aureli fancifully imagines, Admeto’s brother Trasimede, who was supposed to arrange the marriage between Admeto and Antigona, had fallen in love with Antigona’s portrait and given his brother the King a portrait of a woman of interior beauty.
Admeto, who allows his wife to die in his place and feels desire for her substitute, is certainly flawed, even feminized by his courageous wife.
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