Inspired by the protagonist of the film Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro, stage director Claus Guth takes this representative baroque opera by Händel into a contemporary context: the consequences of a returned soldier's return to reality after the Vietnam War. A contemporary reflection of Orlando's warrior and heroic profile with the German composer's masterly score and the voices of Anna Prohaska, Christophe Damaux and Anthony Roth Costanzo.

 

Ludovico Ariosto's epic poem Orlando furioso is the literary substratum that nourishes no less than three titles - the other two being Ariodante and Alcina - by Georg Friedrich Händel. The work was written for Senesino, a celebrated castrato whose supernatural abilities can be inferred from the varied range of registers that the score demands of its protagonist, especially in the particularly demanding "madness scene" that closes its second act.

With a plot that revolves almost exclusively around the jealousy - and alienation - of its protagonist because of his beloved Angelica's affection for Prince Medoro, the work is a major challenge for stage direction today. Claus Guth's celebrated approach - to turn Orlando into a war veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder unable to cope with reality - brilliantly bridges this gap, shedding light and at the same time providing countless surprises along a dramatic path that ends up becoming an enlivening therapy.

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