“Rinaldo” by Harry Bicket

I watched Handel’s opera “Rinaldo” conducted by Harry Bicket.

This opera contains the two of the world’s greatest arias, “Cara sposa” and "Lascia ch'io pianga". These arias give listeners “Handalian moment” when suddenly time stops,  to bring you into the vast emotional universe. At the moment, his music crystallizes the moments of the psychological emotion depth.

They are deep dramatic arias, so first I thought “Rinaldo” is a dramatic serious opera like “Ariodante”. I didn’t know it’s a comedy, or at least, this production has very mockery comedic overtone with some 50’s style with old pop art  (70’s & 80’s?) flares which are both entertaining and borderline cheesy.

Instead the Crusaders invading Jerusalem, it is the Christian missionary in 50’s trying to win hearts and minds of the pagans “for victory of God” using instead of the strong, noble and handsome knight but 50’s gangster looking Rinaldo.

He falls in love with Almirena, the conservative daughter of the missionary leader as she does with him at first glance (it’s funny that in Handel’s operas, characters always fall in love at first flashing sight, without exception). But she is kidnapped by the pagan queen and powerful sorceress, Armida.

Rinaldo sings “Cara sposa” (“My wife, my lover, where are you? Come back, come back to my tears”). Under the captivity, Almirena sings "Lascia ch'io pianga" (“Let me weep, my cruel fate and let me sigh for liberty”).

Rinaldo and his missionary band reach the palace of Armida by overcoming hardships. There, beautiful and sexy Armida falls in love with him despite of the fact they’re enemies. She tries to seduce him by using magic without success. Again, as Handelian characters – especially female characters - always do, she also sings her heart out for her unrequited love.

Almirena was rescued and there is big battle between the two parties. And in the end, the missionary army wins victory by converting Armida to Christianity (I don’t think even Handel could mock the crusaders with such extent).

American countertenor, David Daniels sung the title role. He has dramatic technical singing skills and very beautiful textured singing voice. But even though he is wonderful singer and sung very well in this production, he is not my ideal singer for this role because his voice carries some amount of muffled sound and limited agility.

The sound of the orchestration was very good. All the singers including David Daniels sung very well with so much passion. Despite all these facts and considering the high musical quality of the production, I don’t know why but musically, this production didn’t move me deeply.

So I tried to figure out why by listening to other singers who sung the same music. And I found them, which matched my tastes or beyond my expectations. So far, these are the best renditions of the arias and duets sung in this opera I found on YouTube (so many people sung them!). They all are amazing in each own way.

“Lascia ch'io pianga” by Philippe Jaroussky

“Lascia ch'io pianga” by Magdalena Kozena

“Lascia ch'io pianga” by Olga Pyatigorskaya

“Lascia ch'io pianga” by Cecilia Bartoloni

“Cara sposa” by Philippe Jaroussky

“Cara sposa” by Sarah Mingardo

“Cara sposa” by Christophe Dumaux

“Cara sposa” by Delphine Galou

 “Venti turbini” by Philippe Jaroussky

“Venti turbini” by Ewa Poodles

“Venti turbini” by Antonio Giovannini

“Venti turbini” by Delphine Galou

“Venti turbini” by Marilyn Horne

"Mio cor, che mi sai dir?" by Nicola Marchesini

"Mio cor, che mi sai dir?" by David Walker (in this production)

“Ah! crudel, Il pianto mio” by Inga Kalna

“Ah! crudel, Il pianto mio” by Malin Hartelius

“Ah! crudel, Il pianto mio” by Hrachuhi Bassenz

“Siam prossimi al porto” by Christophe Dumaux

"Cor ingrato " by Christophe Dumaux

"Cor ingrato " by Ewa Podles

 “Abbrugio, avvampo e fremo” by Christophe Dumaux‬

“Abbrugio, avvampo e fremo” by Delphine Galou

“Abbrugio, avvampo e fremo” by Ewa Podles

"Sovra balze scoscesi e pungenti" by Nicola Marchesini

"No, no, che quest'alma" by Nicola Marchesini

"Combatti da forte" by Rosanna Savoia

“Al trionfo del nostro furore” by Inga Kalna & J. Ruth

“Al trionfo del nostro furore” by Noemi Nadelmann & Samuel Ramey (in this production)

“Furie terriblili! By Simone Kermes

“Furie terriblili! By Rita Shane

“Molto voglio” by Rita Shane

"Di Sion nell'alta sede" by Christophe Dumaux

“Il vostoro maggio” by Inga Kalna & Miah Persson

“Fermati!/No, crudel!” by Inga Kalna & Vivica Genaux

“Fermati!/No, crudel!” by Leontyne Price & Marilyn Horn

“Alcina” by Alan Curtis

I listened to Handel’s opera “Alcina” conducted by Alan Curtis. This opera is filled with so many wonderful music.

American mezzo-soprano, Joyce Didonate sung the title role. She is outstanding in this recording. She is technically and emotionally expressive singer. She is wonderful in singing Handel. There is exquisite beauty in her voice, especially in her upper range.

This is the first time I listened to Alan Curtis. Comparing with the refined agility and vibrancy of the orchestrations by Marc Minkowsky or Diego Fasolis, Alan Curtis’s orchestration is calm and subtle. His music is sensitively detailed but lacking certain liveliness for my taste.

It is one of the reasons this recording felt not so exciting than other Handel recordings.

Another reason is that all the singers in this production have very beautiful voices but they have much less expressions and more or less subdued in their singings exception of Joyce.

This opera is based on the Baroque era epic poem “Orlando Furioso” which was also the base for many operas including two more by Handel such as “Ariodante” and three by Vivaldi such as “Orlando Furioso”.

So there are some of the familiar names. In this opera, the sorceress, Alcina is the main character and the main theme is her love triangle with Ruggiero and his fiancé, Bradamante. Ruggiero and Bradamante are both warriors and when the opera opens, Ruggiero is already under Alcina’s magical spell enjoying hedonistic life with Alcina in the heavenly-like place and doesn’t remember his former life. In order to rescue him, Bradamante who is much more macho than her fiancé penetrates the Alcina’s island disguised as a man.

And when Ruggiero was woken by the magic ring, he was disgusted by what was done to him. Alcina doesn’t recognize all the cruelties she’s caused to the others. And she is genuinely in love with him therefore she goes through series of laments for being rejected. And then she turns to anger against the world. There are fear, confusions, psychological deception games and huge battles between Alcina’s party and Ruggiero & Bradamante’s party involving monsters, beasts and warriors.

In the end, Ruggiero breaks the urn. Alcina’s world of the illusion disappears and her prisoners take back their human forms from beasts, rocks and trees after they’re brutally transformed by her.

According to the CD notes, Carestini who was the original castrato singer for Ruggiero refused to sing the aria “Verdi prati” because it was too easy for him. Handel got so mad and told him that he doesn’t get paid (castrato singers were highly paid super stars back then) until he sings it. Carestini sung it, which became the instant hit.

I don’t blame Carestini because even I didn’t recognize the greatness of this aria initially neither. Even after I learned the translation of it, I only thought it as a nice idyllic song. It was only when I listened to it in the context of the opera.  Handel’s thunderbolt finally hit me. And when it hit me, it hit me so hard. The meaning of the aria made me understand his music greatly. Musically, it is an amazing aria with the deep psychological emotion.

This aria is sung when Ruggiero discovers the Alcina’s magical scheme and decides to leave behind the world he once thought was paradise, which was actually the horrid landscape, disguised as illusion. Even though he is very furious for what Alcina has done to him, there is a part of him still felt something special for the world.  Before he leaves, he looks back this world where it still looks beautiful and sings his farewell song,

“Verdant meadows, leafy woods,

you will loose your beauty.

Pretty flowers, purling brooks,

your charm, your loveliness

Is about to be transformed.

Verdant meadows, leafy woods,

you will loose your beauty.

And, the charming prospect changed,

Everything will re-acquire

its former horrid aspect.

Verdant meadows, leafy woods,

you will loose your beauty.”

 “Verdi prati, selve amene,

perderete la beltà.

Vaghi fior, correnti rivi,

la vaghezza, la bellezza

presto in voi si cangerà. 

Verdi prati, selve amene,

perderete la beltà.

E cangiato il vago oggetto

all'orror del primo aspetto

tutto in voi ritornerà.

Verdi prati, selve amene,

perderete la beltà.”

“Giulio Cesare” by William Christie

I watched Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” conducted by William Christie.

This is the third opera I’ve watched conducted by him. And yet, it’s hard for me to describe what his music is like. One, because I’m not able to grasp his music well yet and the second, his music style is so different for each opera.

His orchestration in “Il Sant’ Alessio” was wonderfully simple and sensitively detailed. His orchestration in Monteverdi’s “Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria” (The return of Ulysses) was little fast and strong. This opera has many good songs sung by wonderful singers/actors. But somehow his orchestra played loud music almost in the manner of competing with these non-light weight Baroque singers, which included many tenors. With the bombardment of sounds, by the end of the opera, I was somehow exhausted.

Many of the Handel opera conductors I’ve listened so far, I could call the sound of their orchestration “elegant” or  “refined” but I cannot say the same things about his “Giulio Cesare”. His sounds were very good but rather on the little rough side. Instead, his music in this production had passion and tension.

And this is Handel. Nothing goes wrong with his music.

Caesar in this production did not end up in Egypt but in India at the end of WWⅠ.

 All the singers are the world top class who sung with such passion.

Sarah Connelly played Caesar. She has very beautiful, skillful and big full-scale mezzo-soprano voice which matched the role really well. She is wonderful singer and actress. In singing Caesar, she was almost good as Andreas Scholl.

Also the good thing about her is that she has certain male looks on her so it was not so weird to watch her play a trouser role. She was very masculine on the stage. So I was surprised to find how feminine she is in the interview in DVD. She was so gentle like delicate flower. I’ve watched her sing but never seen her talk before. There was no single thread about her manly. There was the huge difference between her as person and the man on the stage like night and day.

The aria in this opera, “Se in fiorito ameno prato” is her coloratura contest with a violin. I noticed that Sarah sung like bird in this aria. In her interview, she told the interesting story about how she heard birds singing at her cottage and started writing down the notes. Then, she incorporated them to her aria with her violinist partner.

One of the biggest charms of this production along with Sarah is Danielle De Niese who played Cleopatra. She has very beautiful silky soprano voice. Her voice is very modern and earthy. Though her voice is so beautiful, it also has the feminine hysteric pleading texture. This is the reason why her voice is not necessary my ideal female voice for Handel. But also because of the texture, she sounds so good singing Poppea in “L’Incoronazione di Poppea”.

Nevertheless, she was the powerhouse in the production. She has beautiful face with big infectious smile and big puppy eyes. She also has full-figure sex appeal with very perky personality. She looks more like Hollywood star rather than opera star both on and off stage.

So I should not even surprised to see her and other characters suddenly started dancing Bollywood in this production. She danced many arias so well while singing wonderfully. Who could ever thought Bollywood dance and Handel’s music mix so well together? This production is so much like musical.

There is one video clip on YouTube which she and Sarah were singing the Nero and Poppea duet accompanied by Antonio Pappano’s piano. They sang lovingly staring at each other’s eyes and at the end of the duet, still staring, Danielle innocently took and hold Sarah’s hand so gently with her big puppy eyes. With this, she must drive a lot of men crazy.

She has the same dramatic appealing nature in both her singing and acting. So under her outer perkiness, there are very serious and professional sides of her, which are not only coming out from the bottom of her lungs but also her passion.

This production also has a lot of action with high-tensioned violence which many of them coming from the character of Ptolemy played by countertenor, Christophe Dumaux. He should get the supporting actor award for playing violently lunatic, unpredictable, flamboyant king with some comical elements. Especially in his first memorable aria scene, his acting was so fun to watch; there was exciting anticipation to see what he’s going to do next. He did all these acting while singing wonderfully which had such forceful tension.     

Another biggest charm of this production is the stage direction by David McVicar.  He has such dramatic stage directing skills which showed in the whole stage atmosphere including strong acting by the singers. Watching his work, I realized that the ability of stage director makes such big difference in quality of production.

“Julius Caesar” by FW Opera

In my previous writing about “Handel’s “Giulio Cesare”, when I wrote, “…. this is the perfect opera for great night out”, it was just wishful thinking and didn’t think it would come true. And it did.

It was one of the programs played at Fort Worth Opera Festival recently. It was played at Bass Performance Hall, which is modern and very beautiful theater with chic marble icy white color tone throughout the exterior and the interior. The inside of theater is just like an opera house.

The stage setting of “Julius Caesar” was European and modern which also matched the interior of theater. Especially the costumes were impressively gorgeous. I heard that the costume designs were from the same time period used in the Handel’s premier of this opera which is a couple hundreds years earlier. (I heard that people at the Handel’s time used the costumes because they didn’t know how the ancient Egyptians dressed like.)

The whole atmosphere of the production is very European. It was very beautiful looking production not only the set and the costume designs, but also because most of the singers are young, skinny and good-looking. Also the stage directions are mainly borrowed from the Andreas Scholl’s production so it was filled with feel-good atmosphere with younger perkiness. All these things, not only visually but also the sounds from the singers and the orchestration, made the whole production something very presently elegant and beautiful.

Another good thing about this production is that they had three American countertenors.

One of them, Randall Scotting who played Caesar was tall, elegant and handsome. He had very good, beautiful full mezzo-soprano range voice. His biggest weakness though was that his voice did not have necessary force for this role which became obvious right away when he sang the first two masculine arias. Even coloratura piece like “Se in fiorito ameno prato”, it was beautiful and he had good trills but there was no any “ wow” factor. I thought he is more of lyrical singer because he sang better in the last lyrical duet with Ava Pine. In fact, their duet sounded much more beautiful than the same duet by Inger Dam-Jensen/Andreas Scholl whom I consider as the top of the tops.

Texan soprano, Ava pine who played Cleopatra also looked so beautiful and elegant in her gorgeous princess-like dresses. She had very beautiful crystal texture voice. The problem in her voice was that the higher she sings, it gets more beautiful but also more shallowly in sound. However, when she sang the sad, dramatic arias with her lower soprano range in the later part of the opera, her voice became much richer, appealing and real.

Another countertenor, Jose Alvarez sang the Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s half-brother and rival over the throne. He was handsome with the good mezzo-soprano range voice. He was the best actor in the production and he drew more laughter from the audience playing brutal obnoxious boy king.

The strongest singers in this production were Meredith Arwady (contralto) and Michael Maniaci (countertenor) who played the saddest mother and the son, Cornelia and Sextus. Meredith nailed all her arias with her strong and beautiful voice so wonderfully and never let the audience’s attention slipped away.

Physically, Michael Maniaci might be the closest to castrato singer. According to what I read, because of his hormonal generic disease, his vocal cord didn’t develop as ordinary male. So he talks and sings as soprano.

Previously he played Nirenus in the Andreas Scholl’s production. I also watched some videos of him previously and his singing didn’t give me any strong impression. But on the live stage, he sounded so much better. His voice was very rich, beautiful and strong. Also like Meredith, he put so much passion in his singing.

I loved the orchestration conducted by Daniel Beckwith. His orchestration didn’t have any excess of sound and never became cheesy. It was very simple, elegant, soft and beautiful.

Over all, this production was much higher quality than I expected and very enjoyable to watch and listen. Yes, I had great night out.