A propos of Agrippina again, I was wondering whether there are other instances of opera seria where arias consist of characters expressing emotions that they don't genuinely feel? Or were Handel and his librettist subverting the usual formula?

Gosh, harpy, I can't bear to see you like this any more.  Yes it was a good question. 

I am not an opera seria anorak, but for what it's worth A Scarlatti's Griselda is based on the ghastly tale that ends the  Decameron and is The Clerk of Oxenforde's Tale in Canterbury Tales.

I don't know the music, but presumably Griselda's dreadful husband regularly humiliates her when all along he means to reinstate her as his wife.

(How anyone can call Boccaccio liberating when the climax of The Decameron is this approving exposure of  heterosexual marriage as basically sado masochistic, I don't know...)

When anyone is being a seductress, they are presumably being insincere - Cleopatra vamps Caesar not because she fancies him, but for political ends.  Alcina is just a vamp.  (I haven't looked up the libretti.)

To my mind, human motivation is so complex and human propensity for self deception so prevalent, that it is nearly impossible to judge what is insincere, as opposed to downright dishonest.

I think sincerity is a greatly overvalued virtue.  I prefer simple honesty, which is difficult enough.

Thank you both for putting me out of my misery.

I had thought about Giulio Cesare and yes they are both politically motivated, probably, but while they are actually doing the seducing I thought they sort of temporarily meant what they were singing - but maybe not. I'd forgotten about Atalanta though and I don't know Griselda but I'll try and investigate, thanks. I agree Patient Griselda is a horrible story.

I'm anything but an opera seria anorak myself, obviously, but I'd formed the impression that the dissembling more usually happened in the recitative and then the characters revealed their real feelings in the arias.

In Agrippina you get this strange contrast between insincere, or OK dishonest, words being sung to (to me) honest-sounding music, for example in that one where Agrippina says she just wants to be Poppea's pal. I suppose that contrast is meant to be ironic?

There is also at least one hybrid aria where she sings lies followed by truth as an aside - the one where she congratulates Ottone on rescuing Claudio from the shipwreck and then says she's as sick as a parrot about it all.

These calculated falsehoods perhaps reveal something of the spirit of the era - people forced by the expectations of society into saying and doing the opposite of what they really feel?  It's what I find so "explosive" (pun intended) about the moment in FIDELIO when Leonore pulls the gun...  from now on there will be no more respect of mere position, and people will do what they are really thinking and feeling.  It's the moment at which female characters ceased to use wiles and coquetry to achieve their ends, and it opens the way for the breastplated horned-helmet action heroines of the C19th.

Mozart had already had a "dry run" for this kind of double-bluff emotional brinkmanship - the plotline of "Bastien & Bastienne" is about exactly this.  Simple and pure love is no longer enough to hang on to a husband...  Colas has to hypnotise the guileless shepherdess Bastienne with his magic spell ("Diggi-daggi, Ziggi-zaggi!") so that she pouts and preens and talks about putting herself on the open market "in the big city", merely to provoke Bastien's jealousy, and thus his loyalty.  Although the music is not at all "mature Mozart", the libretto is a translation of Rousseau.

Talking of heartfelt moments of insincerity, there's a touching moment from an entirely minor character in Lully's AMADIS - a courtier is asked how he deals with rumours of his wife's infidelity with the King, and he replies "je pretends rire, je pretends rire... je pretends rire".  It's almost heartbreaking.

[my word, we can use non-English words on this board.., what a liberating feeling eh?]

That's a good point, Reiner.  I still feel that the trouble is that we don't know what we are really feeling.  People spend hours and hours and pounds and pounds seeing therapists, and still manage to deceive themselves.

That's my beef with Romaniticism, always going on and on about real feelings, and not taking account of other complications.  (I doubt whether Karl Marx is a hero with many MB members, but he certainly realised people's passions and feelings are very much a matter of context rather than self evidently justified.)

However you are on to something to say that the validity of a person's position no longer was not necessarily demeaned just because of their gender (Leonora), class (Susanna), race (Aida, Otello), physical disability (Rigoletto) or sexuality (er, um, that's an interesting one.)

I suspect Scarlatti's Griselda is the only opera seria principal below the rank of aristocracy or supernatural being.  Grovelling was the only way to assert herself? 

Yes, I find some operas therapudic. For example Britten's Peter Grimes describes life of a small town very well. May be Stravisky's Rakes progress also therapudic. Katya Kabanova could be also therapudic.

Alright, since it's already on the table...   one example here would be Countess Geschwitz in LULU.  She's the only one of Lulu's lovers who expects nothing back in return, and loves her unconditionally.

Does Keiser's opera conclude with a vigorous chorus in praise of autocratic foreign dictatorship, Richard?  I see a production concept there illustrating the rise of Mussolini.  My fees are remarkably affordable and I have diary gap in the autumn due to a postponement ;-)  The concept can be tailored to fit any other brutal and oppressive regimes you may wish to denigrate (Cortez in Mexico, Franco's Spain, etc)

I hate to be picky, but isn't that Lycas in Alceste act 1 scene 3 actually?