fra tempeste funeste quest' alma...

every time i think i'm losing the plot with my rodelinda analyses/interpretations, i remember that flavio bertarido exists and is utterly wonderful in its absurdity.

being a castrato known as il succianoccioli is insane.

going back to the snake aria, because i find i can articulate my thoughts about it better now- i like how it makes rodelinda give off a different impression than she does in the aria that we ended up getting. a bit more cheeky, a bit less heroic. "by the way, watch out for the snakes!" it reminds me of pertharite, where everyone's a smarmy asshole to varying degrees.

it's baffling how there seems to be no project/ensemble dedicated to performing all of alessandro scarlatti's works, à la the english concert's handel for all or whatever la nuova musica's got going on with purcell. i don't know. maybe it's just because i'm perpetually salty about how it seems that all the scarlatti they ever stage is just griselda, griselda, griselda. but surely there has to be something out there.

always gets me how eduige's historical counterpart was recorded without a name, known only as a daughter, a wife, a relation of somebody else, but from that corneille and the librettists who came after him were able to create a character with such depth and humanity.

has anyone ever considered that there may be a correlation between husbands lost at sea and aquatic tenors?