Act I
The opera opens with Rodelinda’s lament for Bertarido, the husband she believes to be dead. “Ho perduto il caro sposo”, she sings, voicing the tragedy that is the central fact of her life as she sits alone and weeping in the palace. Though Rodelinda will pass through grief, misery and fury, her fidelity to Bertarido’s memory is inflexible and defines her every action until their joyous reunion.

She is disturbed by the arrival of Grimoaldo, the usurper of her husband’s throne, who declares both his love and his desire to marry her. Garibaldo, his henchman, arrives, and suggests that his patron free himself of the woman he once promised to marry, Eduige, who complicates the plot by also being Bertarido’s sister. But Garibaldo – falsely, since he is a villain – protests his love to Eduige, believing she will help him attain the throne, to which she has a claim so long as Rodelinda’s son, Flavio, is still a minor.

A disguised Bertarido appears at his own tomb and reads the inscription. He reflects upon the hollow splendour of man’s ambitions in a long accompanied recitative, “Pompe vane”. Longing for Rodelinda, he sings the meltingly beautiful aria “Dove sei”, declaring that only in her presence can he find consolation for his sorrow.

Unulfo appears but is unable to comfort his friend, the devastated Bertarido. They hide when they hear Rodelinda approach the tomb and give voice to her misery in the aria “Ombre, piante”, then are forced to listen to Garibaldo threaten her: either she marries Grimoaldo or Flavio will die. She agrees to the union but vows that her first request as queen will be the head of Garibaldo, the Iago-like counsellor of Grimoaldo. Her sober mournfulness now turns to something more passionate: “Morrai, sì” is a surprisingly sprightly hymn to future vengeance.

But it is not enough to persuade Bertarido of her fidelity when, from a hidden place, he hears her agree to marry his enemy Grimoaldo. Immediately certain of her infidelity, he launches into the bitter “Confusa si miri”. He vows to appear to her when she is married.

Act III
Eduige gives Unulfo a key to rescue the imprisoned Bertarido while Garibaldo, bad to the very end, urges Grimoaldo to kill him. In a dungeon, Bertarido reflects upon his fate in “Chi di voi”, the music as restless as his spirit. His lament is interrupted by both a sword dropped down to him by Eduige and the arrival of Unulfo with the key: mistaking his friend for the executioner, Bertarido stabs and wounds him. No sooner has he realized his mistake than distant voices force them to flee. They leave behind a bloody cloak, which the arriving Rodelinda takes to be that of her husband. Certain that he is dead, she lapses into re-doubled grief in “Se ’l mio duol”, begging God to strike a dagger through her heart.

Grimoaldo takes an honest look at the beast he has become, longs for a shepherd’s simple life and seeks escape in sleep. Garibaldo, discovering him, tries to kill him but is prevented by Bertarido: too noble to allow his enemy Grimoaldo to fall victim to treachery, Bertarido drives Garibaldo off and kills him.

The waking Grimoaldo is confronted by his enemy’s declaration (in one of Handel’s greatest stand-and-deliver arias, “Vivi, tiranno”), witnessed by the entering Rodelinda, that Bertarido has spared him and saved his life. Proof of such clemency moves Grimoaldo to repentance: he gives Bertarido his wife, his son and his throne, and the royal lovers are reunited to general rejoicing.

Donna Leon
rev. © 2005 Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg