Admin

Organization

Singer

Soprano

Akiho Tsujii

Armida

Silke Evers

Almirena

Mezzo-soprano

Marzia Marzo

Rinaldo

Tenor

Roberto Ortiz

Goffredo

Baritone

Hinrich Horn

Argante

Barbara Schöller

Un Mago

Mathew Habib

Due Sirene

Conductor

Enrico Calesso

Stage director

Andreas Wiedermann

Set designer

Aylin Kaip

Lighting designer

Mariella von Vequel Westernach

Dramaturge

Berthold Warnecke

Mainfranken Theater Würzburg

Orchestra

Philharmonisches Orchester Würzburg

Rinaldo (adaptation)

Melbourne

Australia

Royal Botanic Gardens

Würzburg

Germany

Theaterfabrik Blaue Halle

Rinaldo (adaptation) Händel

Public

Approved

The pasticcio "Garden of Earthly Delights" is based on Handel's "Rinaldo" and takes us back to the time of the First Crusade. The Christian troops under Godfrey (Goffredo) of Bouillon besiege Jerusalem, which is being defended by the Saracen king Argante. Against this background, a dazzling story about love and jealousy, deceit and disappointment unfolds: Goffredo asks Rinaldo for support in the fight and in return offers him the hand of his daughter Almirena. The sorceress Armida - Argante's lover - manages to lure Almirena and Rinaldo into her realm. There Armida tries in vain to seduce Rinaldo by deception. Not satisfied with the entanglements, Argante falls in love with Almirena...

With "Rinaldo", which premiered on February 24, 1711 in the Queen's Theater in the Haymarket, Handel achieved the first London opera coup. The plot is borrowed from the famous and widely exploited epic "Jerusalem Delivered" by the Italian Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso, theater poet Aaron Hill designed the scenario, Giacomo Rossi put it into verse. Handel had just two weeks to compose Rinaldo. Even a genius like Handel was only able to put such a wealth of outstanding music on paper in such a short time by using the so-called parody process: he took over numerous numbers from earlier works, which had been composed in particular during his recent trip to Italy. Among these parodies is the opera's most famous melody, Almirena's heartbreaking "Lascia, ch'io pianga". "Garden of Earthly Delights" dramaturgically revolves around the trials and tribulations of the protagonists in Armida's magical kingdom, as described in the second act of "Rinaldo".

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble