Rinaldo

Rinaldo was not just Handel’s first London opera, it was also the first Italian opera specially composed for the London stage. Its premiere in February 1711 was a great success, due to a fine cast, extravagant staging and some of Handel’s most tuneful music and colourful instrumentation. The plot, based on Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (1581), presents a fictional account of the First Crusade, celebrating the superiority of Christianity over other religions. The Christian knight Rinaldo is well drawn: every inch the hero in “Or la Tromba” as he leads his forces (and four trumpets) into battle against the evil Armida, but also revealed as a vulnerable lover, mourning the loss of his beloved Almirena, in the moving “Caro Sposa”. Almirena has the most affecting melody of the opera in her lament “Lascia ch’io pianga”, as well as the most ornate showpiece, “Augelletti”, an extravagant birdsong aria in which the voice is joined by chirruping solos on the sopranino recorder. But for sheer dramatic power, it’s the sorceress Armida who dominates, bursting onto the stage with the fiery “Furie terribili”, and revealing her innermost turmoil in the split-emotion aria “Ah! Crudel”, where she wrestles with her failure to attract Rinaldo.