Handel’s Rinaldo, the product of a composer of 25, we should remind ourselves, is not thought, nowadays, to be a masterpiece even by the most fervent Handelians, though when it was first produced in 1711 it was wildly successful, thanks to acres of coloratura and some very elaborate scenic effects.
Handel’s Rinaldo, the product of a composer of 25, we should remind ourselves, is not thought, nowadays, to be a masterpiece even by the most fervent Handelians, though when it was first produced in 1711 it was wildly successful, thanks to acres of coloratura and some very elaborate scenic effects. We no longer go to opera for the latter, and it’s a good thing we don’t, since we would rarely get much satisfaction — I dread the thought of directors getting bored with their present stock of clichés and turning once more to spectacle.
However, with the decline of ‘machines’ and so on has come a tendency to relocate Handel’s and other opera composers’ works in the present, for reasons I don’t understand.
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