For his opera “Alessandro” Handel was able to engage the best singers of his day in 1726. Today too, the work, with its fictitious plot, continues to offer ample subject matter for a bravura opera evening.

Absolutely typical of its time, Handel’s opera Alessandro portrays individual episodes from the life and reign of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC). The legendary warrior and army commander conquered large parts of the world before meeting an untimely death at the age of 32. A central conflict in Handel’s opera centres on Alessandro’s love, naturally undocumented, for two women, Lisaura and Rossane; they compete for his favours. Alongside this, his calling to his divine heritage is emphasized, which he takes as the occasion to demand the allegiance of his followers, something which is fiercely resisted.
Handel composed Alessandro in the 1725/26 season for the Royal Academy of Music to a libretto by Paolo Antonio Rolli. The premiere took place on 5 May 1726 in the King’s Theatre in London. Alessandro was the first of five operas for the Royal Academy of Music, in which Handel was able to compose for three of the most famous singers of his day – Francesco Bernardi, known as Senesino, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. The parts for Bordoni and Cuzzoni were written to suit their voices in their competitive conflict for the sought-after army commander, a role sung by Senesino. Thanks to this, it was possible to increase public interest in the opera in advance of performances. The work consequently contains a large number of virtuoso bravura arias, whereas restrained, but finely-wrought music by Handel was relegated more to the sidelines of the drama.       
Ortensio Mauro’s libretto La superbia d’Alessandro, first performed in 1690 in a setting by Agostino Steffani in Hanover, and performed again there the following year with numerous alterations under the title Il zelo di Leonato, served as the source for Handel’s and Rolli’s Alessandro. In adapting the libretto for the London performances, the librettist was faced with a considerable task in maintaining a balance between the roles of the famous singers of the Royal Academy, whilst at the same time staging a musical battle of the prima donnas.
It is no longer known which alterations Handel made during the subsequent series of performances in the 1727/28 season. On the other hand, for the 1732/33 performance series the composer revised the opera substantially: six musical numbers were cut entirely, the Finale partly cut, the recitatives considerably shortened, and the roles of Cleone and Leonato omitted entirely; Handel allocated their parts to other figures in the cast, or cut them. Handel had three arias transposed for the new singers. It is conceivable that a few of the alterations from 1732 had already been made in the 1727/28 revival.
As usual, the Halle Handel Edition presents this work in all the versions known from Handel’s lifetime: in the main part, the form of the work found in the first performances in 1726 is reproduced. Three appendices contain early versions of individual movements, the arias added during the first series of performances in 1726, and the version of 1732. A detailed history of the opera’s composition, based on the latest state of research and a comparison of the 1726 and 1732 versions are included in German and English. The critical apparatus provides detailed information about the source material and individual decisions made by the editor Richard G. King. 

Julia Hebecker / Tobias Gebauer
(from „[t]akte" 1/2020 – translation: Elizabeth Robinson)