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Rinaldo

In Torquato Tasso’s epic La Gerusalemme liberata, on which Händel’s masterpiece Rinaldo is based, the tale of the attempted seduction of the hero by the enchantress Armida is told against the backdrop of the First Crusade. Musicologists agree that Händel did a major cutand- paste job on Rinaldo, as more than two thirds of his 1711 score was cribbed from earlier works. This particular production by Pier Luigi Pizzi, conceived in 1985 for Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia, has traveled since to some twenty major opera houses worldwide. Discounting practical cuts and a few displacements of musical numbers, its durable attraction lies in the gorgeous costumes and scenery, a stylish paragon of Hyperbaroque eschewing both literalism and cheap provocation.