HANDEL: Agrippina

This, one of Handel's most approachable, delightful, and least-confusing operas, dating from 1709--his "Italian" period--has been well recorded in performances led by John Eliot Gardiner (Philips) and Nicholas McGegan (Harmonia Mundi). Both are complete--and more than three hours long. This present recording pares down the opera to two hours and 45 minutes--mostly in the recitatives (which are wonderfully written, dramatic, and help develop character, but also which, much to my shame, I didn't miss a bar of), and in the loss of two or three arias. (At the close of the opera, Juno descends to bless the marriage of Ottone and Poppea; here her music is missing, and that's a loss.) Even in such a "reduced" state the work's witty competition between two manipulative women--Agrippina, who wants her son Nero to be emperor and will do almost anything to get him there, and Poppea, who loves the slandered Ottone and wants the power that will come with his being named emperor--and the interplay o