Love Handel

Handel’s Rinaldo has not been highly regarded even by his most ardent admirers. I have never understood why — even less so after the recent performance at the Barbican, with stunning forces, including the English Concert, under the inspiring direction of Harry Bicket.

Certainly the plot is absurd, with a last-minute mass conversion of Muslims to Christianity in order to bring things to a happy conclusion. But there are only six main characters in complicated relationships with one another, turning on their love and hatred like a switch, and going through the usual hoops; that is what Handel operas are. The penny has dropped with me, almost too late, that it is a complete mistake to look for characterisation in Handel. Strong emotions are expressed, and he is a master of putting them into music, but who is experiencing and expressing them is a matter of indifference. Can any admirer of Handel swear that — with the exception of a tiny handful of his works, such as Giulio Cesare — he gives a damn about the outcome of his operas.