Rinaldo by Händel, Dg. 29 Abr. 2012, De (2012/2012), Dirigit per Pier Luigi Pizzi, Director musical Ottavio Dantone, Teatro Municipale Valli, Reggio Emilia, Italy

In 1711 the twenty-five-year-old Handel, as soon as he arrived in London, received the proposal to set to music a drama derived from an episode in Gerusalemme liberata Tasso It would have been the first Italian opera expressly composed for an English theater (previously there had only been 'messes' obtained by assembling pieces by different authors): the undertaking was therefore risky. The show also aimed, as the English Baroque tradition wanted, on a spectacular staging with attention to the smallest details, as well as on singers of great appeal. The main action takes place outside the walls of Jerusalem, during the siege of the Crusaders of Godfrey, but there are many scenes of a fantastic nature; there is also a new character with respect to the story narrated by Tasso: Almirena, daughter of Goffredo and in love with Rinaldo - to whom Handel will assign two memorable arias. Due also to the tight schedule, Handel drew extensively on the music written during his recent stay in Italy: arias of the Rinaldo are taken from the serenade Aci, Galateo and Polifemo (written in Naples in 1708), from the oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disillanno and from the opera Agrippina (performed in Venice in 1710): none of the reused pieces were however known to the public. from London. The opera was staged at the Queen's Theater on February 24, 1711 with an immediate and undisputed success: the title routed, in seven seasons, all the other works on the bill in terms of number of replicas. Rinaldo was Handel's first success in the English theatrical world: a fundamental step not only for the author's personal success, but also for the destiny of Italian opera in London.