Orlando paladino
Dramma eroicomico in three acts, Libretto by Nunziato Porta
based on the epic «Orlando furioso» by Ludovico Ariosto
In Italian. Duration 2 H. 45 Min. incl. intermission after 1st part after approx. 1 H. 07 Min. Introduction 45 min before the performance.
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Orlando paladino
Abstract
Orlando paladino
Joseph Haydn’s operas remain in the shadow of his instrumental works to this day, yet he experimented with especially audacious, surprising and adventurous sounds in musical theatre. His Orlando paladino, a “heroically comical” narration after Ariosto’s chivalric epos Orlando furioso, features the widest variety of figures from a mediaeval fantasy world: the love-crazed Orlando is pursuing Princess Angelica and her lover Medoro; the quarrelsome Rodomonte is determined to fight a duel with Orlando; the shepherdess Eurilla and Orlando’s page Pasquale fall in love; and the sorceress Alcina pulls the strings behind the scenes.
The Dutch director Jetske Mijnssen concentrates entirely on the interpersonal conflicts of this mad bunch, who meet regularly in a nocturnally inebriated state, and shows just how modern the issues raised by Ariosto’s epos are. For the demanding principal roles in our Zurich revival, we were able to engage performers such as Jane Archibald as Angelica, Michael Spyres as Orlando and Mauro Peter as Medoro.