and Poppaea will marry, and that Otho shall have the throne. No one is satisfied with this arrangement, as their desires have all changed, so Claudius in a spirit of reconciliation reverses his judgement, giving Poppaea to Otho and the throne to Nero. He then summons the goddess Juno, who descends to pronounce a general blessing ("V'accendano le tede i raggi delle stelle"). Performance history Premiere The date of Agrippinas first performance, about which there was at one time some uncertainty, has been confirmed by a manuscript newsletter as 26 December 1709. The cast consisted of some of Northern Italy's leading singers of the day, including Antonio Carli in the lead bass role; Margherita Durastanti, who had recently sung the role of Mary Magdalene in Handel's La resurrezione; and Diamante Scarabelli, whose great success at Bologna in the 1697 pasticcio Perseo inspired the publication of a volume of eulogistic verse entitled La miniera del Diamante. Agrippina proved extremely popular and established Handel's international reputation. Its original run of 27 performances was extraordinary for that time. Handel's biographer John Mainwaring wrote of the first performance: "The theatre at almost every pause resounded with shouts of Viva il caro Sassone! ('Long live the beloved Saxon!') They were thunderstruck with the grandeur and sublimity of his style, for they had never known till then all the powers of harmony and modulation so closely arranged and forcibly combined." Many others recorded overwhelmingly positive responses to the work. Later performances Between 1713 and 1724 there were productions of Agrippina in Naples, Hamburg, and Vienna, although Handel himself never revived the opera after its initial run. The Naples production included additional music by Francesco Mancini. In the later 18th, and throughout the 19th centuries, Handel's operas fell into obscurity, and none were staged between 1754 and 1920. However, when interest in Handel's operas awakened in the 20th century, Agrippina received several revivals, beginning with a 1943 production at Handel's birthplace, Halle, under conductor Richard Kraus at the Halle Opera House. In this performance the alto role of Otho, composed for a woman, was changed into a bass accompanied by English horns, "with calamitous effects on the delicate balance and texture of the score", according to Winton Dean. The Radio Audizioni Italiane produced a live radio broadcast of the opera on 25 October 1953, the opera's first presentation other than on stage. The cast included Magda László