Handel: Admeto

Admeto is the story of Alcestis, a character also used in an opera by Gluck. The story begins as a variant of the familiar Orpheus legend, but with a different spin: King Admetus of Thessaly is the victim of a fatal illness and an oracle tells him that he can recover only if someone close to him volunteers to die in his place. His devoted wife Alcestis does so; Admetus is cured and, when he learns what has happened, asks his friend Hercules to rescue Alcestis from Hades. He does so in a musically spectacular scene, after which the classic tale disintegrates into a typical baroque plot of complicated, conflicting loves, misunderstandings, and concealed or mistaken identities, as cliché-ridden as car chases in adventure movies today. But the absurd plot gives Handel material for some superbly lyric and dramatic music, and this cast of baroque experts, with an orchestra of period instruments, brings out all of the music's beauty and power. --Joe McLellan