Amadigi di Gaula is a "magic" opera in three acts, with music by George Frideric Handel. 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.
Burlington House in the 1690s
Anastasia Robinson, who created the role of Oriana
A Masquerade ball at the King's Theatre, Haymarket (c. 1724)
Amadís de Gaula by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, printed in Zaragoza by Jorge Coci (1508).
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age.
Portrait of Handel, 1726–1728
Handel's baptismal registration (Marienbibliothek in Halle)
Handel House, birthplace of Handel
Halle, copper engraving, 1686