Handel’s three year visit to Italy culminated in the premiere of his opera Agrippina in Venice in 1709. Composing at speed to a scandalously witty libretto by a Cardinal, Vincenzo Grimaldi, Handel drew on his experience of the Italian style, plundering his catalogue of cantatas written for the intelligentsia of Rome and producing a youthful masterpiece of dazzling invention and virtuosity. Widely regarded as Handel’s first operatic masterpiece, Agrippina stands out for the quality of its music, full of freshness and musical invention.
Using many of the same characters as Monteverdi...
