| Amadigi di Gaula | |
|---|---|
| Opera by George Frideric Handel | |
 Title page of the libretto for the premiere | |
| Librettist | (debated) |
| Language | Italian |
| Based on | Amadis de Grèce |
| Premiere | 25 May 1715 King's Theatre, London |
Amadigi di Gaula (HWV 11) is a "magic" opera in three acts, with music by George Frideric Handel.[1] It was the fifth Italian opera that Handel wrote for an English theatre and the second he wrote for Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1715. The opera about a damsel in distress is based on Amadis de Grèce, a French tragédie-lyrique by André Cardinal Destouches and Antoine Houdar de la Motte. Amadigi was written for a small cast, employing four high voices. Handel made prominent use of wind instruments, so the score is unusually colorful, comparable to his Water Music.
The opera received its first performance in London at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket on 25 May 1715, in a lavish successful production. Charles Burney maintained near the end of the eighteenth century: Amadigi contained "...more invention, variety and good composition, than in any one of the musical dramas of Handel which I have yet carefully and critically examined".[2][3][4]
- ^ Dean, Winton; Knapp, John Merrill (1995). "Amadigi di Gaula". Handel's Operas 1704–1726 (Revised ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 273–297. ISBN 0198164416.
- ^ Richard B. Beams, "Handel's Amadigi di Gaula: Central City Opera Strikes Gold, July 2011" Archived 31 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine on operaconbrio.com. Retrieved 18 June 2014
- ^ Charles Burney: A General History of Music: from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period. Vol. 4, London 1789, reprint: Cambridge University Press 2010, ISBN 978-1-1080-1642-1, p. 255.
- ^ Pearlman, Martin: George Frideric Handel: Amadigi di Gaula Boston Baroque 2009