Handel’s Rinaldo is an opera about war and the stories we tell about it.
Written at a time when tales of crusading knights filled the European imagination, the opera reflects the fantasies of power and expansion that shaped its era. Rinaldo and his fellow warriors arrive as invaders, battling the rulers of the land they seek to control. In this new staging, director Ralph Bridle looks beyond the myth to the darker realities beneath the fantasy: captivity, enslavement and the human cost of war. These themes find their most haunting expression in the music of Almirena, Rinaldo’s captured lover. More than three centuries after its premiere, in a world still shaped by conflict, Handel’s score resonates with surprising immediacy and emotional power.
Review by Stephen Gilchrist
I’m becoming rather fond of what I would refer to as ‘boutique opera’, that is to say small-cast operas abridged to the essential arias, recitatives and narrative and a company of essential, principal characters. Over the last few years, I have been an attendee at ‘Salon Opera’, an organisation run by a delightfully eccentric opera loving lawyer who hosts such delights in the living room of his rather posh flat in Victoria along with bottomless champagne and delicious canapés, the operas sung by professional upcoming singers, directed and musically directed to perfection.
Grimeborn serves up such delights to a larger audience but without, needless to say, the champagne or canapés. And so it was that I found myself, again, at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston for Ralph Bridle’ outstanding surtitle staging of ‘Rinaldo’, Music by George Frederic Handel and libretto by Giacomo Rossi on a bare stage, with a cast of four and accompanied on piano by musical director David Eaton. Just as ‘Dirty’ Harry Callaghan could confront and beat violent criminals with just a sneer and a Magnum .44 so Bridle makes do with a chair, a piano and yards of red yarn.
But what a cast of four! And what accompaniment!
Rinaldo is an Italian-language opera in three acts composed and was the first Italian-language opera written specifically for the London stage, launching Handel‘s brilliant career in England. Set during the First Crusade, with Jerusalem besieged, it follows the Christian knight Rinaldo on a quest to rescue his beloved Almirena from the Saracen sorceress Armida allied with her lover, the Saracen king, Argante. It features some of Handel’s most celebrated arias, most notably the deeply moving “Lascia ch’io pianga”. There is love found, love betrayed, love lost, and magical deceptions.
Uncut, Rinaldo can run for almost three hours it is a large-scale baroque opera defined by grand theatrical spectacle, magical illusions, and a lavish orchestral score. So what can be achieved in less than two hours? A great deal, it transpires, in this production.
The singing was simply superb. Counter tenor Will Prior makes an authentic hero as the (well costumed in white) Crusader, Rinaldo singing the alto castrato role with purity and beauty. His Cara sposa, amante cara, (Dear betrothed, dear sweetheart) was delicious, Llio Evans, soprano, sings Almirena with touching tenderness and, ultimately sadness at the violence which has preceded finale ultimo. Susanna Davis, soprano, costumed and performed as a sort of cross between Swan Lake’s Rothbart and the Black Swan is suitably both sinister and lovelorn as she pursues her machinations as the sorceress, Armida, while Danny Shelvey, baritone, delivers a terrific turn as (again, well costumed in dark robes) Argante. He looks, acts and sings the part with enormous aplomb. The Armida/Argante duet, Al trionfo del nostro furore (At the triumph of our fury) was beautifully done.
Eaton, on the keys, played empathetically offering superbly skillful support.
I want to see more of Grimeborn. The House was full and justly and deservedly so for this outstanding contribution to London’s opera scene in which the singing was never less than dazzling.
Will Prior, Llio Evans, Susanna Davis. Danny Shelvey
CAST
Will Prior
Llio Evans
Susanna Davis
Danny Shelvey
CREATIVES
Director/Producer – Ralph Bridle
Musical Director – David Eaton
Set Designer – Orlando Bishop
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