Rodrigo was Handel’s first opera written in Italy, and his only major work for Florence. The first performance took place at the Teatro del Cocomero in autumn 1707 (popular belief that the opera was a commission from the fading embers of the Medici dynasty is unsupported by historical evidence). Rodrigo is clearly less insightful in characterisation, pathos and irony than Handel’s other Italian opera Agrippina (written for Venice two years later) but its music shows how far Handel’s crafting of arias had progressed since his time in Hamburg. Eduardo Lopéz Banzo bases his performance on the recently published score edited by Rainer Heyink, who provides a concise essay explaining his new reconstruction of the opera’s problematic text. The libretto concerns an unpleasant tyrant (the Spanish king Rodrigo) who callously discards his mistress Florinda after she has given birth to his illegitimate son, thus prompting a war with her brother Giuliano and the mutinous prince (and rightful king) Evanco. Rodrigo is eventually saved from death by his long-suffering wife Esilena and abdicates, proclaiming the opera’s motto: “To conquer oneself is the greatest victory”.

Al Ayre Español’s execution of Rodrigo is a happier synthesis of vigour and charm than their recent recording of Amadigi (8/08) which set a new standard for abrasiveness in modern Baroque performance malpractice. This is a more judicious performance. The use of castanets in Esilena’s “Sì, che lieta godero” is tacky and daft (does being Spanish somehow justify this lapse of judgement?). Likewise, I groaned at the pointless tambourine rattle on the very last chord of the opera. Occasionally Banzo falls into the trap of misinterpreting allegro as presto, to the detriment of his singers.

María Bayo sings with a light timbre and is good at conveying words but her tuning is often flat and she struggles with coloratura; Esilena’s magnificent aria “Per dar pregio all’amor mio” that concludes Act 1 is distinctly underwhelming, especially when one looks in the score to check what should be happening. Sandrine Piau is much nobler and technically dependable on Alan Curtis’s neat performance of his own edition of the score (Virgin, 7/99). Curtis’s Gloria Banditelli is a more plausibly masculine tyrant than Banzo’s Maria Riccarda Wesseling, although Wesseling produces some strongly characterised and attractive singing. Kobie van Rensburg allies stylishness and expressiveness in his singing, even if Banzo’s shaping of rhythms seems erratic in several of his rousing arias. Max Emanuel Cencic is miscast in a part that contributes almost nothing to proceedings. Anne-Catherine Gillet sounds a bit stretched by the end, but otherwise does well in the small role of Evanco. Notwithstanding a few reservations, this is an involving presentation of the score that will interest devoted Handelians.