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Drawing his inspiration from an excerpt from the poem Jerusalem Delivered from La Tasse, the young Handel composed with Rinaldo his very first opera for the London public. It was an immediate success in a city where Purcell’s death almost twenty years earlier (1695) had left a musical desert. Handel thus became the great musician that London had been waiting for, destined for a great career, and introduced Italian opera to England.
Handel wrote Rinaldo in record time-only fifteen days. As was often the case at the time, he reused several melodies from his earlier works. Rinaldo becomes a pasticcio of Handel’s most beautiful pages such as Cara sposa, Venti, turbini, prestate or even Lascia ch’io pianga.
Opera seria in three acts
Libretto by Giacomo Rossi
First performance on February 24, 1711
at the Queen’s Theatre in London
Alkor – Editions Kassel
Conductor, organist and harpsichordist, Andrea Marcon is one of the most renowned musicians in the interpretation of early music. He studied in Basel with Jean-Claude Zehnder and Hans Martin Linde. He is a laureate of the Innsbruck Organ Competition in 1986 and the Bologna Harpsichord Competition in 1991. He also studied with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Hans van Nieuwkoop, Jesper Christensen, Harald Vogel and Ton Koopman. He is the founder of the Venice Baroque Orchestra, with which he performs in the most important concert halls in Europe, North America and Japan. As a guest conductor he conducts, among others, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. In 2009 he became music director of the baroque orchestra La Cetra in Basel. Andrea Marcon also shares his knowledge with students at numerous conservatories and universities around the world, in addition to his work as professor of harpsichord and organ at the Schola Cantorum in Basel.
Robert Carsen is a Director who’s invited all over the world and also works as a scenographer and lighting designer. He has directed numerous operas, such as Dialogues des carmélites, Les fêtes vénitiennes, Platée, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Falstaff, Der Rosenkavalier, The Turn of the Screw, La dame de pique, L’amour des trois oranges, Ariadne auf Naxos, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Rinaldo, Iphigénie en Tauride, La Traviata and Der Ring des Nibelungen. He has worked on the stages of the greatest opera houses such as Covent Garden, La Scala, the Canadian Opera, the Opéra Comique, the Opéra National de Paris, the Metropolitan Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Opéra National du Rhin and La Fenice, as well as for various theatres in Madrid, Cologne, Aix-en-Provence, Baden-Baden, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, Shanghai and Barcelona. He has directed the plays La tempête, Mère courage and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, as well as musicals such as The beautiful game, Sunset boulevard, Singin’ in the rain, Candide and My Fair Lady. He also works as an art director and set designer for exhibitions at the Musée d’Orsay, the Grand Palais, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Musée Galliera. He designed the scenography and staged Karl for ever, the tribute to Karl Lagerfeld at the Grand Palais in June 2019.
At the Opéra de Lausanne: Ariadne auf Naxos (1987), La finta giardiniera (1989) and L’Orfeo (2016).
Crowned with numerous distinctions, Philippe Jaroussky is one of the most outstanding singers of the last twenty years. His vocal technique and superlative musical qualities have been acclaimed around the world, whether in baroque masterpieces, French melody or the contemporary repertoire. With the greatest conductors and in the most prestigious halls or festivals, he has contributed to the revelation of many unpublished scores by Jean-Christian Bach, Porpora, Caldara, Steffani or Telemann. In 2002 he founded his ensemble Artaserse, with which he regularly tours internationally. A brilliant contributor to the Vivaldi edition for Naïve, he is above all an exclusive artist for Warner Classics, for which he has built up an impressive discography. In 2017, he creates the Jaroussky Academy, which aims to democratize access to classical music by welcoming young people in culturally remote situations. Philippe Jaroussky is an Officer of Arts and Letters.
Born in Germany, Anett Fritsch trained in Leipzig and made her debut at the age of twenty as Despina (Così fan tutte) and Adina (L’elisir d’amore) in Rheinsberg. During her studies she sang minor roles at the Leipzig Opera House. In 2011 she started her international career in the role of Almirena (Rinaldo) in Glyndebourne. Since then, she has performed Merione (Telemaco) at the Theater an der Wien under the direction of René Jacobs, Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) in Michael Haneke’s production in Madrid, Brussels and Vienna as well as Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and the Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Salzburg Festival. She also performs on the most important opera stages such as in Munich, Covent Garden, La Scala and the Vienna Konzerthaus. In 2016, she will release her first CD with opera arias by Mozart.
The Korean countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim studied in Evanston and London. He has appeared on major opera stages such as at the Berlin Staatsoper in L’incoronazione di Poppea, at Covent Garden in Le nozze di Figaro, at Theater an der Wien in La clemenza di Tito, Wiener Staatsoper in Das verratene Meer d’Henze, Santa Fe Opera in M. Butterfly, a creation by Huang Ruo, as well as at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Concertgebouw, La Fenice and the Salzburg Festival. He has played the roles of Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), Cesare (Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica), Orfeo (Parnasso in festa), Barzane (Arsilda), the title role of Giulio Cesare, Nerone (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Speranza (L’Orfeo) and Oreste (La belle Hélène). In concert, he performs in Carmina Burana in Seoul and in The Five Canticles de Britten at the Teatro San Carlo.
The baritone José Antonio López is a versatile singer, using his voice in various eras and styles. He sings in major concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Musikverein, Salzburg Mozarteum and the Concertgebouw, as well as with ensembles such as the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the baroque orchestra La Cetra and Budapest Festival Orchestra. He works with renowned conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Andrea Marcon, David Afkham and Ivor Bolton. On stage, José Antonio López sings the main role in the opera Haendel, as well as various roles in contemporary operas. He has performed in operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss. Current roles include, Garibaldo (Rodelinda) in Madrid, as well as engagements at the Liceu and the Händel Festspiele in Halle.
For the first time ever at the Opéra de Lausanne. Jean Miannay began singing opera at the Conservatoire de Nantes in Natasha Siehoff’s class. After two years, he went on to study musicology in Lille and joined Françoise Semellaz’ class. During those years, Jean performed roles such as Tamino in Mozart’s La flûte enchantée, Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy, Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart.
In 2017, he took part in the International Opera Festival of Belle-Île en Mer, and joined Brigitte Balleys’ class at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Lausanne, where he is currently enrolled. He is a Colette Mosetti foundation award-winner in 2018. He sang the role of the Prince in Pauline Viardot’s Cinderella at the Opéra de Lausanne. Winner of the 26th Clermont-Ferrand International Singing Competition in 2019 for the role of Beppe, he also won the Grand Prix du Concours Raymond Duffaut at the Opéra du Grand Avignon.