Word: rinaldo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...both. The composer, said Rossi, "scarcely gave me the time to write, and to my great wonder I saw an entire opera put to music by that surprising genius, with the greatest of perfection, in only two weeks." The genius was George Frideric Handel, then 26. The opera was Rinaldo, conceived, composed and staged for London's Haymarket Theater in 1711. Based on an epic about the Crusades by Torquato Tasso, the opera tells the story of the Christian general Rinaldo and the Saracen queen Armida. It is a spectacular mixture of pagan magic, military pomp, vocal fireworks...
Until last week in Houston, it had never been staged in the U.S. Like almost all Baroque music, it fell into neglect with the rise of the classical era in the late 18th century. During the 19th century, romanticism buried it completely. That Rinaldo has only now come along as an afterthought of the post-World War II Baroque revival testifies to two things: the unadventurousness of the average opera company and the scarcity of the special type of virtuoso singer required for the title role...
...David Gockley, 32, the Houston Grand Opera has a general director who will take a chance on the unfamiliar and still pack the house. In Marilyn Home, singing the pants role of Rinaldo for the first time, the company has a guest performer who not only can go easily from velvety mezzo caresses to sparkling high soprano fioriture, but also has the sheer power and poise to make the music conform to her character's needs. Home sings as though she has never had a finer, more rewarding role. That comes close to being the case. Mezzos have...
...creatures played by dancers. The staging of the final battle between the Christians and the Saracens is a novel affair that can only be called aero-choreography: dancers and acrobats pirouette, somersault, tumble and flip high above the stage in stylized but effective combat. All the while, Home, as Rinaldo, looks on from atop a grim, menacing war machine. It is a memorable image...
...Rinaldo, Handel wrote some of his most striking orchestral music. The blazing forth of four trumpets and drums in Rinaldo's last-act aria "Or la tromba "was an effect that dazzled early 18th century audiences, and it still sounds good today. With a chamber orchestra drawn from the Houston Symphony, Conductor Lawrence Foster, the symphony's regular leader since 1972, makes his players key members of the drama. He cannot draw from Sopranos Evelyn Mandac (Almirena) and Noelle Rogers (Armida) the Baroque bravura he gets from Home, but Mandac is an especially lovely singer with a bright...