Guildhall Opera Double Bill

Handel’s pastoral cantata Aminta e Fillide, full of sparkling arias, was commissioned by Rome’s Academy of Arcadia when the composer was just 22, and follows Aminta on his campaign to woo the nymph, Fillide. The theme of Cupid’s arrow also runs through John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, composed 25 years earlier for the court of King Charles II and considered by many to be the earliest known English opera.