By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 28 February 2007]

Comparing our own taste to that of Handel’s London, a programme essay for this Royal Opera revival says “it is hard to pretend that, for modern purposes, Orlando is some kind of Shakespearean masterpiece” – the implication being that it is little more than a string of virtuoso arias. But the point about Orlando, surely, is that Handel intended neither, and the productions that trust him – of which this is not one – vindicate his creative intuition.