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''Flavio, re de' Longobardi'' ("Flavio, King of the Lombards", HWV 16) is an
opera seria ''Opera seria'' (; plural: ''opere serie''; usually called '' dramma per musica'' or ''melodramma serio'') is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to ab ...
in three acts by
George Frideric Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training ...
. The Italian-language libretto was by
Nicola Francesco Haym Nicola Francesco Haym (6 July 1678 – 31 July 1729) was an Italian opera librettist, composer, theatre manager and performer, literary editor and numismatist. He is best remembered for adapting texts into libretti for the London operas of Geor ...
, after
Matteo Noris NGOs are an effective source of change and could be much more effective than governmental plans alone. Non federal government institutions typically take initiatives for delivering social adjustment in our society. Our agency is actually one-stop re ...
's ''Flavio Cuniberto''. It was Handel's fourth full-length opera for the
Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke ...
. Handel had originally entitled the opera after the character of Emilia in the opera. Dean, Winton, "A Handel Tragicomedy" (August 1969). ''The Musical Times'', 110 (1518): pp. 819–822. ''Flavio'' is unusually concise for an opera by Handel of this period. It is also notable as a skillful blend of tragedy and comedy, both in the text and the music, and for being one of Handel's few operas to feature leading roles for all major voice categories of his day – soprano, contralto, castrato, tenor and bass.


Performance history

Handel completed the score only seven days before the premiere, at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket on 14 May 1723. There were eight performances in the premiere run. The work was revived on 18 April 1732, under the direction of the composer, for four performances. There were no further revivals until it was rediscovered and performed in Göttingen on 2 July 1967. The first UK performance since Handel's time was on 26 August 1969 at the Unicorn Theatre in
Abingdon-on-Thames Abingdon-on-Thames ( ), commonly known as Abingdon, is a historic market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England, on the River Thames. Historically the county town of Berkshire, since 1974 Abingdon has been admi ...
, England. As with all Baroque opera seria, ''Flavio'' went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s, ''Flavio'', like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today. Among other productions, ''Flavio'' was performed at the
New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, du ...
in 2007 and by
English Touring Opera English Touring Opera (ETO) is an opera company in the United Kingdom founded in 1979 under the name Opera 80 by the then-existing Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1992 the company changed to its present name. Today it is sponsored in part by Art ...
in 2009.


Roles


Synopsis

:Scene:Lombardy, in legendary times. Flavio, King of Lombardy, is also King of Britain. He has two trusted, elderly counsellors, Lotario and Ugone. Lotario's daughter Emilia is engaged to Ugone's son, Guido. Ugone has another daughter, Teodata, who is young and famous for her great beauty. Teodata has a secret boyfriend, Vitige, courtier of the King.


Act 1

Vitige slips away from his sweetheart Teodata's bedroom as dawn breaks. The two take a tender farewell of each other. Guido and Emilia are married in a ceremony with their immediate families present. The newly married couple sing of their happiness and look forward to the wedding party that evening. Ugone presents his daughter Teodata to the King. Flavio is greatly struck by her beauty and suggests she become lady-in-waiting to the Queen (who does not appear in the opera). King Flavio receives word that his governor in Britain has become incapacitated through illness and needs to be replaced. The King offers the position to his counsellor Lotario, but changes his mind and offers the job to Ugone instead, thinking that with her father out of the way, he will more easily be able to seduce his lovely daughter Teodata. Lotario is furious that the King has backtracked on the prime position he was offered. Flavio praises the beauty of Teodata to his courtier Vitige, whom the King does not realise is Teodata's secret lover. Vitige tries to play down her attraction, telling the King that he doesn't think she is at all pleasing to look at. This produces no effect on the King's ardour, however. Ugone tells his son Guido that he has been gravely insulted by Lotario, who has slapped him across the face. His honour demands that he fight a duel, but he is too old now, and demands that his son do so in his stead. Guido has to agree that his duty demands that he kill the father of his new bride. When Emilia meets up with Guido, he is too ashamed to look her in the eye. She does not understand what is wrong, but declares she will always love him, no matter what.


Act 2

Flavio has ordered the lovely Teodata to come to him and is working on seducing her when her father bursts into the room, protesting about the loss of his honour. The King leaves Ugone with his daughter, who believes, mistakenly, that he must have discovered her clandestine relationship with Vitige and confesses all. This only makes Ugone bewail the loss of his family honour even more. Lotario tells his daughter Emilia that her marriage to Guido is null and void and demands that she abandon him. She tells Guido what her father is asking her to do, but says she will never cease to love Guido. Guido is torn by his love for her and his duty to avenge the insult to his father. The King orders his courtier Vitige to go to Teodata, tell her that the King loves her, and bring her to him. Vitige and Teodata decide the best strategy in this difficult situation will be for her not to reject the King but to play along with him. Guido challenges Lotario to a duel. The older man scornfully accepts, feeling that his greater experience will allow an easy victory, but is mortally wounded. The horrified Emilia finds her dying father in a pool of his own blood. He tells her Guido was responsible, and expires. Emilia vows to be revenged.


Act 3

Emilia and Ugone both go to the King, she demanding justice for her father's murder, he justifying his son's action by his vindication of the insult to him. Flavio says he will consider the matter; really he is more concerned at the moment with trying to seduce Teodata. Vitige brings Teodata to the King and has to listen as Flavio declares she will be his real Queen, which makes him enraged with jealousy. Emilia confronts Guido, who gives her his sword and tells her to run him through. She takes the sword but is unable to kill him and leaves. Vitige and Teodata have a quarrel about her treatment of the King as Flavio listens unobserved. She points out that Vitige told her to play along with Flavio, but Vitige says he did not mean that she should go that far. Flavio comes out of his hiding place, declares they have both deceived him and they will be punished. Flavio now realises that he will have to show wise judgement like a good King. He sends for Emilia and tells her that he has followed her desire; he has had Guido decapitated for killing her father and in fact she can see the severed head right away. Emilia swoons away and while she is unconscious the King has Guido come to her side so that when she revives they are joyously reunited. He sends for Vitige and tells him that his punishment will be that he will have to marry the girl who he does not think is nice to look at, Teodata, and presents her to him. So both pairs of lovers will marry, Ugone will go to Britain to take up his position as governor, and Flavio remain faithful to his wife.


Context and analysis

The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera '' Rinaldo''. A tremendous success, ''Rinaldo'' created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel was appointed music director of an organisation called the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the present day London conservatoire), a company under royal charter to produce Italian operas in London. Handel was not only to compose operas for the company but hire the star singers, supervise the orchestra and musicians, and adapt operas from Italy for London performance. ''
Ottone ''Ottone, re di Germania'' ("Otto, King of Germany", HWV 15) is an opera by George Frideric Handel, to an Italian–language libretto adapted by Nicola Francesco Haym from the libretto by Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino for Antonio Lotti's opera ...
'', an opera by Handel presented for the Academy in January 1723, was the first time London audiences had seen the operatic superstars, castrato Senesino and soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, performing together in an opera, and had been an immense success, with demand for tickets far outstripping supply ''Flavio'', following ''Ottone'' in the same year and with the same leading singers, did not create such a sensation as ''Ottone'' had, although it was successful enough with audiences to be revived by Handel in a subsequent season. One reason for this may have been ''Flavios comparative brevity, as announced in the playbills by the Academy
At the King's Theatre...this present Tuesday...will be performed a New Opera call'd, FLAVIUS...By reason of the shortness of the Opera, to begin exactly at Eight a-Clock.
''Flavio'' also mixes high tragedy with amorous intrigue and comic interludes, which was perhaps not what London audiences, who had become accustomed to heroic dramas on a consistent note of serious drama in Italian opera, were expecting. The work is lightly scored mostly for strings and continuo instruments only, with woodwinds being used sparingly. Handel's music treats some of the complications of the plot with mock-heroic irony, but the more serious passages produce intense dramatic music from the composer. 18th century musicologist
Charles Burney Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist a ...
praised the aria " Amor, nel mio penar" written for Senesino as Guido, torn between love and duty, as "extremely pathetic" and the aria for Emilia, "Amante stravagante" became a popular success as a separate song with English words fitted to it as "See, see, my charmer flyes me". During rehearsals for ''Flavio'', the tenor Alexander Gordon became frustrated with Handel's direction of the music from the harpsichord and threatened to jump on the instrument, to which Handel replied "Oh! Let me know when you will do that and I will advertise it. For I am sure more people will come to see you jump than to hear you sing."


The engraving of a scene from Flavio

Although a caricature, the contemporary engraving of Senesino on the left, Francesca Cuzzoni and castrato Gaetano Berenstadt on the right, provides valuable information about the visual aspect of the original performances of Handel operas. The illustration is probably of a scene from ''Flavio''. The elongated bodies of the castrati tower over Cuzzoni, who was described by
Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...
as "short and squat". The set is architectural and generic, not a specific locale, and the costumes for the men are also generic, with some inspiration from ancient Roman military attire, breastplates and leg armour, combined with plumes on the headdresses. Such costumes were worn by the leading men in Handel operas whether the setting was ancient Rome or Gothic Europe. Cuzzoni, in contrast, wears a contemporary gown such as might have been suitable for presentation at court, with a dwarf to serve as her train-bearer.


Recordings


References

Notes Sources * The first of the two volume definitive reference on the operas of Handel *Hicks, Anthony, "''Flavio''", in ''
The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...
'', ed.
Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the ''Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
. London: Mamillan.


External links

*
Italian libretto

Score
of ''Flavio'' (ed.
Friedrich Chrysander Karl Franz Friedrich Chrysander (8 July 1826 – 3 September 1901) was a German music historian, critic and publisher, whose edition of the works of George Frideric Handel and authoritative writings on many other composers established him as a pio ...
, Leipzig 1875) {{Authority control Operas by George Frideric Handel Italian-language operas 1723 operas Operas