The London Handel Festival was brought to a close with Handel’s rarely performed opera Scipione. Composed immediately in the wake of the composer’s acclaimed trilogy, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano, and Rodelinda, in a window of just three weeks, Scipione was conceived to fill a gap in the Royal Academy of Music’s schedule due to the unexpected delay in arrival of the renowned Italian soprano Faustina Bordoni in 1726.

Though the haste with which the work was put together perhaps shows in the first and third acts (in part however this is due to some dramatic weaknesses in the libretto), the second in particular contains a number of compelling and beautifully constructed arias which helped secure the work a popular reception amongst London audiences of the time. In fact, the Abbé Provost (author of Manon Lescaut, who had great influence on the popularisation of English ideas, culture, and literature in eighteenth century France) reported from London in 1733 that he had been informed by 'competent musicians' that 'Julius Caesar, Scipione, and Rodelinda are [Handel’s] best works'. Christian Curnyn and the Early opera company did far more than to substantiate Provost’s remark, and made a strong case for the work’s revival in what was a dramatic and expressive account.

Nicolas Poussin's painting of The Continence of Scipio, depicting his return of a captured young woman to her fiancé, having refused to accept her from his troops as a prize of war

The opera centres around a fictitious domestic drama following the renowned Roman general Scipio Africanus’ capture of Carthage in the Second Punic War. Scipio falls in love with one of his hostages, Berenice, though she is herself betrothed to the Spanish prince Lucejo. Scipio’s captain Lelio is similarly enamoured with another captive, Armira, who refuses to entertain or return his affections whilst she remains a prisoner. After a failed rescue attempt by Lucejo, in which he disguises himself as a Roman soldier and breaks into the palace gardens where Berenice is held hostage, Berenice’s father Ernando, King of the Balearic Islands, arrives with a ransom. Scipio frees Berenice, accepting Ernando’s offer and friendship, and on seeing her devotion to Lucejo renounces his own feelings for her and is celebrated by all for his clemency and selfless nature.

Mhairi Lawson brought expressive bel canto qualities to her role as Berenice, and particularly impressed at the end of Act 2 in 'Scoglio d’immota fronte' with a fiery concluding cadenza. A mention should also go to Jessica Cale’s (winner of the 2020 International Handel Singing Competition’s audience prize) mercurial and affective portrayal of Armira - her arias 'Voglio contenta allor' (Act 2), and 'Libera chi non e i lacci' (Act 1) were both real highlights.