E vivo ancore…Scherza infida (from Ariodante, 1735)

Lascia ch’io pianga (from Rinaldo, 1711)

Ariodante and Rinaldo were written at opposite ends of Handel’s operatic career. Rinaldo was not only his first London opera but also the first Italian opera intended specifically for a British theatre. Ariodante, based on an episode in Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and set in Scotland, was written nearly a quarter of a century later for the recently opened theatre at Covent Garden, where it was first seen in 1735. Long regarded as one of the greatest of all Handel’s operatic arias - not least for its sustained construction, which so effectively intensifies the pathos towards the end - Scherza infida comes from the second act where Ariodante (originally sung by a castrato) has been deceived into believing that his beloved Ginevra has been unfaithful to him. He is actually about to throw himself off a cliff but, far from coming back as an “ombra mesta” as he predicts in the aria, he survives and returns to Edinburgh in full armour to put things right.

Rinaldo, based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, was first performed at the Queen’s Theatre Haymarket in 1711. The aria Lascia ch’io pianga was written as long as four years before that for the allegorical oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, where its function is seductive rather than pathetic. In its new context during the First Crusade, as the imprisoned Almirena (daughter of the leader of the Christian armies) laments her imprisonment by the Saracens, it is even more effective. While it is less extended, less dramatic and less elaborate than Scherza infida it is no less touching.