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Programme Note

BRIEF PROGRAMME NOTE

Fernando is the original opera, set in fourteenth century Portugal, which Handel seems for political reasons to have had to convert in haste to Sosarme, cutting some recitatives (including accompanied ones) and altering (in a less than convincing fashion) the text, putting the setting into a mythical Middle East. Our text can be used for either version (it is provided with the necessary notes for an easy conversion from Fernando to Sosarme) but it has the advantage over existing editions of being not only more modern and accurate but also of providing, for the first time, the possibility of using the finer original version.