Opera “Ariodante”, one of the biggest in Handel, opens in Portugal
The opera “Ariodante” was a great success for Handel in 1735 and is one of his main works in this genre. However, until today it has remained unpublished on the Portuguese stages. This Monday, for the first time, Teatro de São Carlos will present it with a cast in which Cecilia Molinari and Ana Quintans stand out. It is a semi-staged version, shorter than the original, without the ballets it contains (the last of a dance) and also omitting the occasional aria that is customary to cut. In total, there are two parts, of 68 minutes each, as explained to the Expresso by the Argentine director Mario Pontiggia.
The production is important not only because it is an opera and because it is a debut, but also because it is the first time that São Carlos has had an opera other than a concert version since the beginning of the pandemic. It was in this version that a deviated work was presented in March, but this was not possible and the theater then asked the director to make a “semi-staged” version. “I made another proposal, to create a space, a mini-scenery within the set, with a baroque orchestra on stage, to recreate the spirit a little. That’s why the show is conceived as if it were a baroque spectacle of the time” , explains Pontiggia. “The room is lit. And in the scenario there is a very simple device, which is a white labyrinth, allowing a victim of the whole situation to be continually spied upon and conjured up around it to materialize. The lighting is adapted according to the spirit of the environment in each aria”.
Pontiggia’s first collaboration with the theater was precisely in an opera by Handel, “Rinaldo”, with Teresa Berganza, some thirty years ago. A few years later, he returned with a Traviata. Ariodante is the first production in the theater that he signs himself, and it seems to have gone well. “It was a lot of work to assemble, but thank God, when the audience sees it, they will see that it is very agile. It took a lot of effort to achieve this. Thanks to the interpreters and the actors and extras and the musicians and all the participants, it was relatively easy”.
“The problem with” Ariodante “is that it has beautiful music but a somewhat confused history. There are times when you don’t understand well”, he continues. “We used dramaturgy to make the hypotheses a little clearer. The music is of such incredible quality that, let’s say, all our work paid off.” At 8pm this Tuesday, this story of love, jealousy, conspiracy and heroism set in medieval Scotland, transfigured by the genius of the greatest of Bach’s contemporaries and into an original staging, will begin its career in Portugal.