Rinaldo

Opera by Georg Friedrich Handel

Early music and traditional artisanry – stage magic meeting that of puppets – all of this combines into an extraordinary spectacle in the performance of Handel’s fantastical opera Rinaldo by the lautten compagney BERLIN, under the leadership of Wolfgang Katschner, and the puppet theater Carol Colla e Figli. For more than 200 years the Milan-based company has made puppets dance. Now for the first time, they bring the knightly tale of Rinaldo to the stage.
Rinaldo is the first opera that George Friedrich Handel wrote for his chosen home of London, and it caused a furor in 1711: with a daring mix of fantasy and wartime drama, the young man from Saxony created a musical extravaganza for the London public that made him known as a hip opera composer.
The protagonist of the story is the knight Rinaldo, who has moved to the Holy Land. Almirena, his beloved, falls captive to the evil sorceress Armida and becomes a pawn in the enemy camp. Naturally there is a happy ending; that is as integral to baroque opera as the breathtaking vocal fireworks – which excite audiences today as much as they did 300 years ago.

A coproduction with the Handel Festival in Halle, the Goethe-Theater in Bad Lauchstädt, the Theater Winterhur, the Associazione Grupporiani – Milano, Comune di Milano – Cultura – Teatro Convenzionato and the lautten compagney BERLIN. This production was made possible by guest performances in the Theaters of Schaffhausen, Baden and Dornbirn.
The Handel Festival in Halle is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien) following a decision by the German Federal Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag).

(Cast from the performance in Wolfsburg on 24. April 2020)