”A new recording of
 Handel's 'Rinaldo' --
 reviewed by
 ROBERT ANDERSON

'... a performance of vitality and appropriate style ...' ”

When Handel came north from Italy in early 1710, it was via Innsbruck. It would be pleasant to think he entered the Hofkirche and saw the magnificent array of statues surrounding the mausoleum of Maximilian I, among which was Godfrey of Bouillon, crowned with thorns as liberator from Islam of the Holy Sepulchre. Gibbon offers little congratulation: 'A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the God of the Christians: resistance might provoke, but neither age nor sex could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three days in a promiscuous massacre.' Tasso in Gerusalemme liberata softened the crusaders with love interests and produced Armida with her enchanted garden to beguile Rinaldo and eventually marry him once she converted to Christianity. Handel had very sensibly been hired as Kapellmeister in Hanover by the future George I and was now in London determined on operatic success.

Rinaldo was advertised for 24 February 1711 at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket. Report was that Handel had composed the opera in a fortnight. This may be so, since Handel, bent on a triumph, lifted much from his own previous winners in Italy, as also from the music of his Hamburg rival Reinhold Keiser, so that of all but forty numbers, only some dozen were original. The present recording, a more than commendable offering, with much-varied repeats of infectious vitality, follows Handel's cast specification, except that Goffredo (the original Godfrey of Bouillon) and Rinaldo have swapped sexes, with the Christian general now a male alto. Of the seven main characters in 1711, all but one was either female or a castrato. This may well have enchanted the contemporary audience, but the risk is monotony. It is with a sense of relief that one hears the pagan bass of James Rutherford as Argante king of Jerusalem at last bestride the stage [listen -- CD1 track 7, 0:00-1:30]. Indeed it must be confessed that those seeking to undermine the crusaders have quite the most exciting music. Armida as sorceress and queen of Damascus, is mistress of all the noisiest and most terrifying elements. She enters in an aerial car drawn by two dragons belching flame and smoke, and Inga Kilna makes the most of her malevolent appearance in a formidable spitfire aria [listen -- CD1 track 11, 0:00-1:09].

Very different is the background to the second aria of Miah Persson as Almirena, who will, in defiance of Tasso, eventually marry Rinaldo. Here all is atwitter with prominent flageolet and flutes. The original production reinforced Handel's evocation of bird life with live examples, a novelty suitably mocked by Richard Steele: 'The Sparrows and Chaffinches at the Hay-Market fly as yet very irregularly over the Stage; and instead of perching on the Trees and performing their Parts, these young Actors either get into the Galleries or put out the Candles' [listen -- CD1 track 14, 0:00-1:20]. As well as displaying his finest musical wares in Rinaldo, Handel was determined to present himself as an outstanding keyboard virtuoso. There is a dazzling such display to introduce Armida's aria at the end of Act 2. It is difficult to imagine that Handel would have played any faster than Nicolau de Figueiredo [listen -- CD2 track 24, 0:00-1:08]. For those enamoured of such things, there is veritable harpsichord warfare between Figueiredo and Piers Maxim to bring down the curtain (music by Babell rather than Handel).

Act 3 offers a last fling for the wicked ones in a superb duet 'Al trionfo del nostro furore' [listen -- CD3 track 9, 0:00-1:28]. Bluster as they will, there is no chance that their cause can prevail, and the opera ends with the happiest of choral reconciliations between Christians and pagans [listen -- CD3 track 18, 0:00-1:25]. There is little point in pretending that Rinaldo makes much dramatic sense or is any sort of commentary on the First Crusade, and it is frustrating that some of the more sensational effects occur in secco recitative. But as an anthology of what Handel could offer to the connoisseurs of London the day after his twenty-sixth birthday, it is brim-ful of musical delights. Singers and orchestra give a performance of vitality and appropriate style under the watchful direction of René Jacobs.

Handel: Rinaldo

HMC 901796.98 DDD Stereo NEW RELEASE (3 CDs) 67'28"/74'56"/50'35" - TT 193' 2003 harmonia mundi

Vivica Genaux, soprano (Rinaldo);  Miah Persson, soprano (Almirena);  Inga Kalna, soprano (Armida);  Lawrence Zazzo, countertenor (Goffredo); J ames Rutherford, baritone (Argante); Christophe Dumaux, countertenor (Eustazio);  Dominique Visse, countertenor (Mago cristiano); Freiburger Barockorchester; René Jacobs, director

Georg Friedrich Haendel: Rinaldo - Opera seria in three acts (1711)