Cavalli’s Il Giasone is a bit of a rarity but perhaps, like the rest of his opus, it’s getting more attention than it used to. The latest video recording of it was made at the Grand Theâte Genève in 2017. There’s a summary of the rather convoluted plot in my review of an earlier version from Vlaamse Opera. Oddly in this version Isifile’s final aria omits the weird section about her cold dead breasts.
Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso is based, like so many operas, on an episode in Ariosto’s work of the same name. In this case it relates the events that take place during Orlandos stay on the enchanted island of the sorceress Alcina. There are two love triangles, enchantments and Orlando goes mad before order is restored, the island is disenchanted and Alcina, as befits a woman who gets uppity in an eighteenth century opera, is restored to her rightful place in the Outer Darkness. Structurally it’s pretty typical of the period with a lot of showy arias in a variety of forms plus a couple of decent choruses.
operaramblings 