Orlando, Royal Opera House, London

By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 28 February 2007]
Comparing our own taste to that of Handelís London, a programme essay for this Royal Opera revival says ìit is hard to pretend that, for modern purposes, Orlando is some kind of Shakespearean masterpieceî ñ the implication being that it is little more than a string of virtuoso arias. But the point about Orlando, surely, is that Handel intended neither, and the productions that trust him ñ of which this is not one ñ vindicate his creative intuition.