Knights at the Opera, Part 12 - Sixteenth-Century Epic Poetry - Page 2
© Iris Bass
As for Handel's 1733 Orlando, this opera of intricately tangled love affairs not only traces back to Ariosto's liftings from the famous Chanson de Roland, but also reminds us that Orlando Furioso is actually a sequel to another poem, Boiardo's unfinished Orlando Innamorata. Before Handel approached this story, Vivaldi had already twice set elements of the episode from Orlando Furioso as operas.
In the Handel version, in which a magician named Zoroastro pulls everyone's strings, the title character is in love with Angelica, the queen of Cathay, who lives at the court of Charlemagne. She prefers the knight Medoro, who is himself also loved by a shepherdess, Dorinda. Dorinda tells Orlando that Medoro is planning to leave with Angelica, hoping that he will intervene so she will not lose Medoro. Not only does Orlando intervene, but he goes virtually mad with jealousy and attack Angelica, who is conveniently borne away on a cloud before he can harm her. In his madness, Orlando experiences all manner of hallucinations. First, he makes love to Dorinda and then attacks her, thinking he is in mortal combat with an enemy; then Angelica reappears only to be attacked by Orlando again, who now thinks her literally a monster. Zoroastro finally restores Orlando's sanity to him by sprinkling him with a special potion; Orlando awakens from his nightmare so remorseful that now he attempts suicide. Angelica prevents this, and finally he accepts that she loves another and gives her his blessing to marry Medoro (and what of Dorinda? Being only a shepherdess, she can't reasonably expect to marry a knight anyway, can she?)
Haydn's 1782 Orlando Paladina is a sometimes humorous, rather pastoral piece based on the same Ariosto episode. Here, the enchantress Alcina, in a rather more benign mood than as depicted in Handel's Alcina, cures Orlando of his insanity at the behest of Angelica. However, the action is complicated by the fact that Alcina is besotted with Rodomonte, Orlando's enemy, who wants Angelina for himself.
All these works give us the distinct impression that, when away from the fields of glory, knights had an awfully messy love life! In the next article, we'll examine another 16th-century epic poem in which events of the First Crusade stir the action alongside the malevolent forces of love.
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