Handel and Leonardo Leo Rinaldo opera to a libretto by Aaron Hill. This is the 1718 Naples version of Rinaldo as reconstructed by Giovanni Andrea Sechi. Directed 2018 by Giorgio Sangati at the Palazzo Ducale, Martina Franca, as part of the Festival della Valle d’Itria. Stars Carmela Remigio (Armida), Francisco Fernández-Rueda (Goffredo), Loriana Castellano (Almirena), Teresa Iervolino (Rinaldo), Francesca Ascioti (Argante), Dara Savinova (Eustazio), Valentina Cardinali (Lesbina), Simone Tangolo (Nesso), Dieli Hoxha (Argante’s Herald), Kim-Lillian Strebel (Spirit in the guise of a woman), and Ana Victória Pitts (Wiseman). Also features mimes Alessio Arzilli, Andrea Bellacicco, Alessandro Colaninno, Cristiano Parolin, Marco Risiglione, and Jacopo Sorbini. Fabio Luisi conducts the Orchestra La Scintilla. Set design by Alberto Nonnato; costume design by Gianluca Sbicca; lighting design by Paolo Pollo Rodighiero. Directed for TV by Matteo Ricchetti; sound recorded by Rino Trasi and Giuseppe Famularo. Sung in Italian. Released in 2019, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C+
This is an outdoor production. Should I exclude this under our snooty quality standards? Well, no—it’s in a cozy courtyard of the Duke’s palace with seats for about 600. See image below (from a later production):
And how could I resist Handel performed by Elton John, David Bowie, Freddy Mercury, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Gene Simmons, and Cher? Finally: we are in Dallas, where Fabio Luisi leads the Dallas Symphony. So I make an exception.
First below meet Francisco Fernández-Rueda playing Elton John playing Goffredo, leader of the good guys. In Handel’s day, the good guys were crusaders. In this production they are pop music stars:
This is the uncut Naples version with Handel’s music plus additional music by Leonardo Leo. The show is padded further with local comic interludes. Next below is Dara Savinova playing David Bowie playing Eustazio, Goffredo’s brother. This character is often cut in modern productions. But this is a Festival della Valle d’Itria production, where obscure opera versions get performed in all their glory. In this scene Eustazio produces two little bottles of white pills which he gulps down—perhaps a reference to the world-wide opioid pandemic:
In yellow below is Teresa Iervolino playing Freddy Mercury playing our hero Rinaldo. He expects to marry the Duke’s fair daughter Almirena if he is victorious in the battle coming up:
And here Loriana Castellano appears as 50% Madonna and 50% Cyndi Lauper playing the fair Almirena. If this girl was waiting for me at home, I might desert to the enemy:
Francesca Ascioti plays Gene Simmons (Kiss) playing Argante, leader of the bad guys:
And here’s a better shot of Carmela Remigio playing Cher playing Armida, a sorceress allied with Argante. She hopes to use her charms to neutralize Rinaldo and help Argante defeat the good guys:
In Handel’s day, the good guys were crusading Christians and the bad guys were Saracens. Rubbing salt in that wound is not a good idea today. In this production it is thought that the good guys represent Pop music stars and the bad guys are Heavy Metal types. The biggest problem with this is that most music lovers interested in obscure Baroque operas probably don’t know the difference between Pop and Metal.
This is the Naples version of Rinaldo, which has music from a local favorite, Leonardo Leo, pasted in. And in Naples, they liked to add local comedians to their productions. So next below are two Naples clowns: Simone Tangolo as Nesso and Valentina Cardinali as Lesbina:
Next below Nesso enters the regular opera in the bird cage scene that inspired Handel’s famous music for piccolo recorder:
So this productions has just about everything. Except the mermaids. All we get is Kim-Lillian Strebel in the ugliest costume for a Sirene ever. Kim-Lillian was no doubt disappointed by this outfit. The director had to be careful with her. She is just a student at the Accademia del Belcanto Rodofo Celletti. But she sings and acts like a seasoned pro:
Next below is the scene where Armida takes Almirena captive:
As is typical in Baroque opera, the bad guy is now in love with the good girl. This is where Handel wrote the famous aria “Lascia ch’io pianga”. But in Naples this is moved to later and sung by Rinaldo:
With the help of the old Wiseman, the Duke and his brother kill the monsters:
While Rinaldo defeats Argante and his army:
Be careful what you wish for, Rinaldo:
In this version, the bad guys get executed after they lose the battle. But at the end Handel likes to feature the moral of his story, and the bad guys join in also:
The La Scintilla orchestra plays well under Fabio Luisi. The singers are adequate except for Carmela Remigio, who shows star power and gets some enthusiastic spontaneous applause. SQ is good throughout. The director seems to miss nothing (other than the mermaids), and this is the only video of the Naples version of Rinaldo.
The set is brutally ugly. Maybe management told lighting designer Paolo Pollo Rodighiero to obscure the set with feeble light other than spots on the signers. Possibly this looked OK to the live eyes. But the video is oppressively dark in my HT and PQ is weak. The costumes, although sometimes clever, are mostly shabby. To the opera audience, the Pop/Metal war probably seemed more confusing than helpful, and it was not carried through with the extras on the stage.
Most print critics mostly seemed to be baffled by this show. But Gramophone named this “Video of the Month” for June 2019 honoring the groovy aspects of the disc while warning readers not to expect more than a “smattering” of Handel. It occurred to me that this title could maybe be used to trick young people in your life into watching and opera. But the typical pop or metal music fan has an attention span of 3 minutes and 10 seconds—this title runs 3 hours and 10 minutes.
Now to a grade. I think this title is too long and too weak to appeal to anyone other than seasoned experts in baroque opera who want to see everything. This leads me to a C. I’ll add a plus since this is the only video of the Naples version.
Here is an official trailer from Dynamic:
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