Handel’s Ariodante1. You’re better off with the brother of the hero than with the heroine’s spurned lover. (Basically, beware of the ones you find attractive.)
2. OK so a young man in love never questions whether it’s actually his inamorata who is admitting another man to her apartments late at night, but if the princess’s maid really looks so like her just by putting on her dress, then why doesn’t the princess get her to do this often and set her to conspicious works of community service and charity, while she herself has a bit of a lie in or lounges about on the sofa eating chocolates?
3. What would I give to be a mezzo-soprano? Certainly some fingers and toes. Just to be able to sing like that, not even to be a world-class mezzo, though that would be fun too. Look at Sarah Connolly, remarkably sexy as Caesar in the DVD of the Glyndbourne Giulio Cesare (see picture), and then I saw her recently being fantastic as the anti-heroine Agrippina in the eponymous opera, manipulating left right and centre and not even getting her come-uppance. I think it’s not that easy to get strong counter-tenors who can do justice to duets with top sopranos, so women often get to sing the castrati parts in Handel. Last night men only played the dull and rather stupid people, and not only the heroine and her maid but the hero and the anti-hero were played by women. Ariodante was a last-minute stand-in, and truly brilliant, while Polinesso stalked about in five-inch heels and a black suit, with a very long black ponytail, making an absolutely excellent villain.
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