In Handel’s opera Imeneo, the most exciting bit of the story has already happened before curtain-up. Rosmene has been kidnapped by pirates and rescued by Imeneo; so, will she marry him like a good grateful soprano should, or be true to her former love, Tirinto? Three acts of dithering later, she makes the wrong choice. Imeneo flopped at its 1740 premiere; the version Fabio Biondi and his ensemble Europa Galante have recorded, however, is the adaptation Handel made for Dublin two years later, and includes some striking arias and a lovely, tender final duet. The orchestra has the odd rough edge, but it fizzes in Imeneo’s jealousy aria, sung with authority by the tenor Magnus Staveland. However, the recording belongs to mezzo Ann Hallenberg as Tirinto; she is in quite another league to the rest of the cast, and the performances lifts whenever she is singing.
