Rinaldo by Händel, Van (2021/2021), Geregisseerd door Robert Carsen, Dirigent Andrea Marcon, Opéra de Lausanne, Lausanne, Zwitserland

In this chivalrous saga, the crusader Rinaldo fights against the plotting of the magician Armida in order to rescue his beloved Almirena. Drawing his inspiration from an excerpt from the poem Jerusalem Delivered from La Tasse, the young Handel composed with Rinaldo his very first opera for the London public. It was an immediate success in a city where Purcell’s death almost twenty years earlier (1695) had left a musical desert. Handel thus became the great musician that London had been waiting for, destined for a great career, and introduced Italian opera to England. Handel wrote Rinaldo in record time-only fifteen days. As was often the case at the time, he reused several melodies from his earlier works. Rinaldo becomes a pasticcio of Handel’s most beautiful pages such as Cara sposa, Venti, turbini, prestate or even Lascia ch’io pianga.