When Donna Leon, the acclaimed author of the best-selling Commissario Guido Brunetti series, is not conjuring up tales of crime & corruption in Venice, she is listening to opera. Over the years, Leon has noticed that her favourite composer, George Frideric Handel, filled his operas with arias that make reference to animals; rich in symbolism, the perceived virtues & vices of the lion, bee, nightingale, snake, elephant, & tiger, among others, resonate in his works.
In Handel