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THE NOBLE CRUSADER

Outside Jerusalem, Rinaldo, the knight, stands alongside his troops in preparation for battle. When Argante, the Saracen king, and Armida, his sorceress queen, kidnap Rinaldo's beloved, he must overcome a series of battles and trials to save her — trials including mermaids, spirits, and dragons!

This opera, full of sorcery, seductions, and secret disguises — composed in 1711, Handel's first for the London stage — catapulted the composer to stardom. Portland Opera brings it to you for the first time, with new costumes and sets designed especially for the intimate Newmark Theatre. Portland Baroque Orchestra joins us again in the pit, repeating their wildly successful 2009 collaboration with us on La Calisto.

Sung in Italian with English projections above the stage.

Run time for RINALDO is approximately 3 hours.

Please note: This production of RINALDO will include the use of strobe lights.

Cast

Featuring Portland Baroque Orchestra in the Newmark Theatre.

ACT I
Jerusalem is besieged by the army of Goffredo (the historical Godfrey of Bouillon), accompanied by his brother Eustazio and his daughter Almirena. Goffredo promises the knight Rinaldo that he will bestow Almirena’s hand on him when the city is taken. Argante, king of Jerusalem, now appears to ask Goffredo for a three-day truce, to which the Christian leader agrees.

Armida, Argante’s lover, is queen of Damascus and a powerful sorceress. Spirits have revealed to her that the besiegers’ victory will depend on the support of Rinaldo: she will therefore undertake to remove him from the field. To this end she abducts Almirena. Eustazio advises Rinaldo to seek the counsel of the Christian Sorcerer.

ACT II
Eustazio, Rinaldo and Goffredo have taken ship to go to the Sorcerer. As they are nearing their destination a boat appears with a disguised Armida on board. She invites Rinaldo to join her, saying she will take him to Almirena. Despite the opposition of Goffredo and Eustazio, he follows her.

In Armida’s enchanted palace, Almirena laments her fate. Argante declares his love for her, promising to prove it by helping her to escape.

Rinaldo is brought before Armida, and asks her to restore Almirena to him. Armida becomes enamored of the knight, but he rejects her advances. In order to seduce him, Armida takes on the form of Almirena, but once she reappears in her own guise Rinaldo flees. Still hoping to trick him, Armida transforms herself into Almirena once more. Now Argante appears: taken in by the deception, he promises “Almirena” he will free her from the bonds of cruel Armida. The latter, furious, returns to her own form, and declares that Argante can no longer count on her magic powers to defend Jerusalem. Argante runs off.

ACT III
Goffredo and Eustazio reach the Sorcerer’s cave, at the foot of the mountain on whose summit is situated Armida’s magic palace, defended by monsters. The Sorcerer presents them with magic wands, which enable them to overcome the monsters and reach Armida’s garden, where the latter is about to kill Almirena in order to be revenged on Rinaldo. The magic wands make Armida and the monsters disappear. Almirena, Rinaldo, Goffredo and Eustazio sing of their joy, and then decide to attack Jerusalem the next day. Argante and Armida are reconciled and make common cause against their enemies, but are defeated by Goffredo’s troops. Rinaldo can now marry Almirena. Armida and Argante are converted to Christianity and declare they too will marry, whereupon Goffredo grants them their freedom.

The Making of RINALDO

“This Opera is a Native of Your Majesty’s Dominions and was consequently born your Subject.” — Aaron Hill, in his preface to the English-language libretto of Rinaldo

When Handel arrived in London in 1710, he could hardly have known what a fraught political landscape he was alighting in—nor how the intense philosophical wranglings of the fractious governmental classes were being fought by proxy in London’s theaters. Italian opera became a political football, and Handel an unintentional participant in Whiggish polity.

All a twenty-something Handel wanted to do was write an opera, get paid, and expand his fame and influence. Why he chose England is, at first, unclear, but after securing a post as Kapellmeister for the Hanover Court (by Georg Ludwig, who would later become George I of England), he took a leave of absence and arrived in England, ambitious, young and with a reputation for genius which preceded him.

The state of English opera was in disarray in the early 18th century, not having had a convincing indigenous species of the genre since Henry Purcell’s Timon of Athens in 1695. Even this, however, was not an opera in the Italian sense of the word, completely sung. Purcell wrote mostly semi-opera, which interspersed spoken dialogue where Italian opera would have sung recitative. Politics had long been a feature in English theater, and English operas during the Restoration certainly emitted the whiff of commentary from The Siege of Rhodes to King Arthur. It may have been the partisan nature of English operas that led to the suppression of a strong English language operatic form, evolving into the 18th century, effectively opening the door for Italian opera to step right through and take hold. Taste certainly played a role, with London audiences introduced to Italian opera and developing an appreciation for what some Whig critics deemed the effeminate decadence of the art form. Whatever the case, Handel walked into an operatic world ripe for his plucking and quickly secured a commission to write an Italian opera for the Queen’s Theatre.

Aaron Hill, impresario for the Queen’s Theatre, commissioned Handel to write an Italian-style opera (in Italian) to appeal directly to English audiences. In his preface to the English language libretto of Rinaldo (available for sale at all performances!) he explained:

“The deficiencies I found, or thought I found, in such
Italian Operas as have hitherto been introduced among
us were first: that they had been comps’d for tastes
and voices different from those who were to sing and
hear them on the English Stage; and secondly, that
wanting the machines and decorations, which bestow
so great a beauty on their appearance, they have been
heard and seen to considerable disadvantage.”

In Rinaldo, particularly the Rinaldo which Hill devised, taking “a poet’s privilege and [varying] from the scheme of Tasso” as he put it, he created a scenario to suit his every need: The sensuous decadence and novelty of Italian opera then developing into an exciting pastime for wealthy Londoners, coupled with enough wonders (dragon- drawn flaming chariot!) to keep his stage machinery in the Haymarket admirably busy. He secured Giacomo Rossi to versify his plot and the celebrated Mr. “Hendel” to make “Musick [which] spoke so finely for itself, that [he was] purposely silent on the subject…” Rinaldo was wildly successful, enjoying fifteen performances in its initial run, and several remounts (often modified by Handel), as well as a brand new adaptation (again, supervised by Handel) for revival in 1731. Indeed it was Rinaldo that received the most performances of any of Handel’s operas during his lifetime.

But how was it that Aaron Hill, at this time a twentyfour- year-old “litterateur,” became the impresario at the Queen’s Theatre in Haymarket, a Whig stronghold, employed by the Tory Parliamentarian, William Collier? The answer may be found in the rather complicated politics of the time and the rivalry between Whigs and Tories for control of opera in London.

In 1707 the Lord Chamberlain was persuaded to divide the theatrical genres, declaring that the two acting troupes in Drury Lane would merge and perform straight theater in the theater there. The opera, meanwhile, would find a new home in the Queen’s Theatre in Haymarket. The Whigs controlled Parliament in 1707. As all theatrical endeavors at the time, opera was controlled by the government in the person of the Lord Chamberlain. In 1710, the Tories gained the majority in Parliament and made their move. While the patent to the Haymarket theater was not revoked completely, the Tory Vice Chamberlain, Thomas Coke, “a great lover of Musique and promoter of operas,” handed control of day to day operations of the Queen’s Theatre to William Collier, who, too busy for the job, appointed Aaron Hill as his manager.

So, here was young dramatist Aaron Hill, full of ideas about artistic unity (he objected in the strongest terms to the random costuming common at the time, as well as improbable/incoherent scenery, inappropriate to plot), in charge of an opera company. This excess of dignity must have been heady! But despite the new Tory management, the patrons of the Queen’s Theatre were still Whigs and the aristocratic and wealthy. Many Whig commentators opposed Italian opera for its “Roman Catholicism, arbitrary monarchy and corruption.” They also objected to its perceived lack of any purpose besides … pleasure. The battle for the heart of opera, according to historian Paul Monod, “took place primarily within the Whig party” and “Handel’s early operas became closely linked to issues of Whig self-definition and efforts to impose new standards on public art.”

Hill was ambitious and bright, and knew that he would have to placate the Whiggish critics arrayed against him. To those objecting to Italian opera on ideological grounds, Hill fought fire with fire, undermining objections by creating a story sure to appeal to those fearful of “foreign foppery.” Hill used for the basis of Rinaldo, Torquato Tasso’s poem, Gerusalem liberata, which had already received treatment for the English theater by playwright John Dennis, a notable loather of opera, which he characterized as a “mere sensual Pleasure, which says nothing either to enlighten our Understanding or convert the Will.” By manipulating Tasso’s plot and adding his own details, Hill attempted to circumvent the objections of Dennis and his ilk. His opera was sufficiently martial, Christian and democratic to please Whigs without offending Tories. Handel’s music ensured popular success.

Handel is credited with writing Rinaldo in two weeks. Rossi complained that he could barely keep up with the lightning-quick genius of Handel. Handel’s speed was a product of pragmatism. He didn’t have much time in England before he must return to take up his duties in Hanover, and he prosaically borrowed much of the lush and tuneful score from himself, liberally lacing it with arias from his other works. This worked somewhat to his detriment in the minds of some critics, particularly when the arias he selected don’t seem to entirely match the situation at hand—one glaring example is Argante’s entrance aria in Act I, when the great king, accompanied by all martial pomp, sings of the “hissing snakes and howls of Scylla.” Winton Dean and John Knapp, coauthors of Handel’s Operas (1704-1726), estimate that as much as two thirds of the opera was recycled and adapted from his other works. No matter. The opera opened on February 24, 1711 to instant popular success. It was performed 47 times before it was retired in 1716, only to rematerialize in 1731. Many of these performances saw the score tinkered with by the composer for the convenience of a given cast. Rinaldo secured a very cordial relationship in the Haymarket for Handel, who for a number of years wrote an opera every nine months for the Queen’s (or King’s, depending upon who graced the throne) Theatre.

Rinaldo was not universally pleasing, however. Champions of English opera Joseph Addison (who had attempted an English libretto) and Richard Steele tried to ridicule the opera to its death in their publication, The Spectator, objecting particularly to its splashy special effects and castrato singers. They created a tempest in a teapot, but did not affect the economic triumph of Rinaldo or the position of Handel as the “Orpheus of his Age.” Eleven short days after Rinaldo’s opening, Aaron Hill was ousted as impresario at the Queen’s Theatre. The spectacular effects and costumes had proved an excessive burden for the theater’s receipts, and Hill found himself on the hook for payment. He was soon embroiled in a nasty legal battle with various London craftsmen, but he did accomplish a rather remarkable feat. He introduced England to the “great and good” Mr. Handel, and the English embraced him utterly. The feeling seems to have been mutual, as Handel returned to England in 1712 and would end his days there.

How to explain the success of German composer in a fiercely patriotic England? Perhaps The Musical Times of 1893 offers the best explanation when it said:

“Handel had the adaptability which often is a precious
companion of genius…No alien musician ever more
quickly saw what the people of this country required
or so promptly qualified himself to supply it. A German
among Germans, and an Italian among the Italians,
Handel was an Englishman among the English and, if
anything, bettered his model.”

— Alexis Hamilton

About the Composer: George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

“He is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb.” — Ludwig van Beethoven

Born in Halle-in-Saxon, Germany, George Frideric Handel became the most celebrated English composer of all time.  In London, when England had lost its coherent operatic voice, Handel was able to provide that cosmopolitan city with music equal to its status as a world power.  During his lifetime, his music was considered not merely great but the greatest.  Handel’s appeal is timeless, populist and immediate, even at the distance of 300 years.  As Samuel Barber put it, “Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him.”   What little is known about Handel’s boyhood was published in John Mainwaring’s 1760 Handel biography Memoirs, much of which modern scholars have verified.  When his father denied young Handel access to instruments, the boy practiced in secret on a forgotten clavichord in his father’s attic.  Then, the nine-year-old Handel, contrary to his father’s expressed wishes, set out to follow the old man on a visit to the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels.  The boy followed his father’s carriage, which, delayed by cavernous ruts in the road, was soon overtaken by the determined youngster.  With no other option, his father brought him to the Duke’s manor, and there, the Duke overheard the boy playing the organ.  The Duke was so impressed that he encouraged his father to see about the boy’s musical education, forcing him to allow his son to study music.  Under the expert tutelage of Wilhelm Zachau, young Handel began to compose at age ten with a talent rivaling that of later prodigy, Mozart.   At university, Handel met Georg Philipp Telemann, another gifted composer.  Telemann influenced some of Handel’s early church cantatas, and Handel often “borrowed” Telemann’s themes and melodies to give him inspiration when inspiration was wanting.  Handel then began playing second violin for the newly opened opera house in Hamburg.  His keyboard talents quickly earned him the more prestigious role of accompanist, and he premiered his first opera, Almira, in 1704.  When his second opera, Nero, failed in 1705, Handel decided Italy was the place to continue his musical studies, and by 1706 he was wowing the Italians as both an organist and a composer.   By the time he left Italy, Handel was a recognized master, in demand in courts all over Europe.  His first job was in Hanover, but he often stretched his leaves of absence beyond what was reasonable.  By 1710, Handel was once again on sabbatical, this time in England which was ripe for his talent.  He embarked on a remarkably fruitful career which included 42 operas, three music dramas, myriad adaptations of others’ works, the oratorios we are most familiar with today, The Messiah and Esther, in addition to a dazzling amount of orchestral music.  Like Mozart, Handel was one of a handful of composers who wrote equally well in all of the genres available to him. At the end of his life, Handel was celebrated as a composer, a humanitarian, and as the “great and good Mr. Handel.”  He was laid to rest in a huge public funeral in Westminster Abbey in the Poet’s Corner in 1759.  Some 25 years later, poet William Cowper wrote of him:  “Remember Handel?  Who, that was not born deaf as the dead to harmony forgets or can, the more than Homer of his age?”

RINALDO Production Footage

The footage in these videos was captured during a dress rehearsal.

Ornamentation in RINALDO

Guest conductor Gary Wedow and soprano Sharin Apostolou demonstrate baroque ornamentation in Handel's RINALDO.

Meet the RINALDO continuo players

Portland Baroque Orchestra continuo players join the singers for Portland Opera's RINALDO during a recent rehearsal. Continuo players create the accompaniment for the recitatives for baroque opera by playing the written bass notes and improvising the harmonies.

Opera Insights: RINALDO

Watch these videos to explore RINALDO with Bob Kingston, Portland Opera's Resident Historian & Lecturer.

Where does the story of RINALDO come from?




What to expect at a Baroque opera:




How do performances of Baroque opera differ today?




Who were the Castrati?

Music from RINALDO

Listen to the popular aria "Lascia ch’io pianga" in this clip from the movie "Farinelli."

Listen to the Music