TWith this latest addition to his Handel opera series Alan Curtis returns to more familiar ground after Berenice and other rarities, and reaches another peak. The second of three works with stories derived from the Renaissance poet Ariosto, Ariodante was written for Covent Garden in 1735 and is set, somewhat irrelevantly, in Edinburgh, the only opera that Handel located in the British Isles. It lacks the (literal) magic of the earlier Orlando and the later Alcina, but the music is none the less magical for that. This recording competes successfully with others by Nicholas McGegan and Mark Minkowski, and Joyce DiDonato in the title role fully matches formidable performances by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Anne Sofie von Otter (not forgetting Janet Baker in an older set). At the core of the plot, developed in a central act that bristles with action, is a deception reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Much Ado: the wicked Polinesso, menacingly sung by a masculine-sounding Marie Nicole Lemieux, contrives by an impersonation involving the gullible Dalinda (the narrator in Ariosto) to persuade Ariodante that his beloved Ginevra (Guinevere, the king’s daughter), is unfaithful. Fine as Ariodante’s music is (including a ‘Scherza infida’ sung with Baker-like torment), it is surpassed overall by that for the wronged Ginevra, a role magnificently sung by Karina Gauvin — less noble but more anguished than Lynne Dawson for Minkowski. Publicly vilified for her apparent infidelity, she pours out her distress in a tense scena of accompanied recitative and aria that takes her — and us — to the brink, one of the greatest moments in all Handel. Ariodante’s honourable brother Lurcanio is sung with warm feeling by Topi Lehtipuu, who blends beautifully with the Dalinda of Sabina Puértolas in the lilting Act III wooing duet. With sensitive playing from Il Complesso Barocco (stylish in the dances that round off each act and atmospheric in the moonlit prelude to Act II) I would put this set at the head of available versions, as much for the supporting roles as for Curtis’s direction, the vivid recording, and DiDonato in white-hot form.

Reviewed by Robert Allen