Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel, composed in 1711. It was the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The story of love, war and redemption is loosely based on Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata. The opera was revived in London regularly up to 1717, and in a revised version in 1731.
About Rinaldo (opera) in brief
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel, composed in 1711. It was the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The story of love, war and redemption is loosely based on Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme liberata. Rinaldo was revived in London regularly up to 1717, and in a revised version in 1731. After 1731, however, the opera was not staged for more than 200 years. Renewed interest in baroque opera during the 20th century led to the first modern professional production in Handel’s birthplace, Halle, Germany, in 1954. The opera’s tercentenary in 2011 brought a modernized production at the Glyndebourne Festival. The soprano aria \”Lascia ch’io pianga\” has become a particular favourite, and is a popular concert piece. Handel began to compose operas in Hamburg, where he spent the years 1703–06; his principal influences were Johann Mattheson and Reinhard Keiser. In autumn 1706 Handel went to Italy. He stayed for long periods in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice, making frequent visits to the opera houses and concert halls. He obtained introductions to leading musicians, among them Arcangelo Corelli, Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti, and Agostino Steffani, and met numerous singers and performers. From these acquaintances Handel learned the essential characteristics of Italian music, in particular \”fluency in the treatment of Italian verse, accurate declamation and flexible harmonic rhythm in recitative,…
drawing the necessary distinction between vocal and instrumental material and, above all, the release of wonderful melodic gift\”. The music was, in the words of historian Donald Jay Grout, ‘tinged with the serious, heavy formality of Lutheran Germany’. In 1709, Handel became the idol of the future King Ludwig I of Germany. Among those keen to employ him was Prince Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover and future King George II of Germany, who was keen to have him as a cantatator. After this work, he composed his second Italian opera, Agrippina, which was premiered in Venice on 26 December 1709. He then went on to compose three more operas, but all of these are now lost, but fragments of the music from these works have been identified in later operas. The last of these works, Almira, premiered on 8 January 1705, was a considerable success when it was premiered at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice. Over the next three years Handel composed three moreoperas in the German style, but they are all now lost. The first of these operas to have found its way to the Metropolitan Opera in 1984, after a successful run at New York’s Metropolitan opera in 1984. The opera was mounted sporadically over the following thirty years; after the successful run in New York, the work has become more frequent worldwide.
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