Organization

Conductor

Erin Helyard

Stage director

Louisa Muller

Set designer

Simone Romaniuk

Singer

Countertenor

Jake Arditti

Rinaldo

Soprano

Emma Pearson

Armida

Tenor

Louis Hurley

A herald

Pinchgut Opera

Randall Scotting

Goffredo

Bass

Adrian Tamburini

Argante

Lighting designer

Verity Hampson

Olivia Payne

Soloist

Alexandra Oomens

Almirena

Orchestra

Orchestra of the Antipodes

Italian

Sydney City

Australia

City Recital Hall

Public

Private

English

Approved

Rinaldo Händel

Experience Pinchgut Opera's fresh and enthralling 5 star hit production of one of the most beloved operas of all time, Rinaldo by Handel.  An unmissable musi...

Pinchgut Opera presents Rinaldo by Handel | City Recital Hall | Must end 6 December

Go behind the scenes to discover insight into Pinchgut Opera's upcoming presentation of Rinaldo by Handel 
City Recital Hall | 30 Nov–06 Dec

It's full of bangers with hit after hit! Rinaldo is sure to make your evening sparkle. Witness the magic and be swept away on a musical adventure with incredible artists in this theatrical masterpiece of Baroque opera. 

Featuring: Artistic Director and conductor Erin Helyard, director Louisa Muller, Countertenor Jake Arditti, Soprano Alexandra Oomens, soprano Emma Person, countertenor Randall Scotting, and baritone Adrian Tamburini.

Behind the scenes with the stars of Rinaldo | Pinchgut Opera | 30 Nov – 6 Dec | City Recital Hall

An absolute must for lovers of Handel, Rinaldo is a towering Baroque opera and a masterpiece of musical drama. This was the first Italian opera ever written for the London stage, and it catapulted the young Handel to fame and fortune with its brilliant display of arias, duets and orchestral effects, by turns ravishing and thrilling.
In this magical tale of chivalry and cunning, the knight Rinaldo battles the scheming sorceress Armida to rescue his beloved Almirena. This was the first Italian opera ever written for the London stage, and it catapulted the young Handel to fame and fortune with its brilliant display of arias, duets and orchestral effects, by turns ravishing and thrilling.
Countertenor Jake Arditti, who wowed us as Nero in The Coronation of Poppea (2017), returns to dazzle again as the heroic Rinaldo. Emma Pearson (Athalia, 2018) brings her golden and wonderfully flexible soprano to the evil sorceress Armida, and Carlo Vistoli (Artaserse, 2018) brings his beautifully burnished countertenor tones to the role of Goffredo. Stunning soprano Stacy Alleaume (The Loves of Apollo & Dafne, 2021) returns to Pinchgut to delight us in the role of Almirena.



THE HISTORY OF RINALDO
Rinaldo is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on an outline by Aaron Hill after Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata; London, Queen’s Theatre, 24 February 1711 (revised version, London, King’s Theatre, 6 April 1731). Pinchgut Opera will be performing the earliest version - the 1711. Rinaldo features the famous soprano aria ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’.

Rinaldo was not only Handel’s first opera for London but also the first Italian opera specifically composed for the London stage. It was an immediate public success and (despite mocking notices from Addison and Steele in The Spectator) had 15 performances before the close of the 1710–11 season.

In his preface to the libretto Aaron Hill suggested that the earlier Italian operas heard in London had been ‘compos’d for Tastes and Voices, different from those who were to sing and hear them on the English Stage’, and that they lacked ‘the Machines and Decorations, which bestow so great a Beauty on their Appearance’. He had therefore ‘resolv’d to frame some Dramma, that by different Incidents and Passions, might afford the Musick Scope to vary and display its Excellence, and to fill the Eye with more delightful Prospects, so at once to give Two Senses equal Pleasure’.

Handel’s music is certainly both varied and excellent, with much resourceful use of woodwind solos and the addition of four trumpets to the score to produce a wide range of instrumental colour; Armida’s final aria of Act 2 includes the unusual feature of improvised harpsichord solos. In fact, some of the musical material was taken from works Handel had composed in Italy three or four years earlier, often substantially reworked.

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble