Prom 55: Thursday 25th August 2011 (Handel - Rinaldo)

[aeolium]

No, pilamenon, it's good to hear that the semi-staged production seemed to work for you and doubtless many others. It was hard for me to judge as when I was listening there just seemed to be laughter at incongruous points (including during the lengthy harpsichord solo) but to be honest I wouldn't be too concerned what setting was used for Rinaldo as it is such a ludicrous plot, and I don't think it's by any stretch of the imagination one of Handel's better operas (dashed off in 2 weeks).

An insistence on being deadly authentic to the spirit of the age every time

I suppose my point is that this is so far from being the case - isn't virtually every opera production nowadays teeming with anachronisms and updated to any other historical setting than the one intended? - that it would be a novel experience just once to see a production of an opera that attempted to re-imagine a setting that its contemporaries would have understood. Not for the purposes of being authentic, which as I said I think is a pointless enterprise, but for the purposes of trying to get into the thought-world of those distant writers and composers. Perhaps I am perverse in being interested in those very differences, that complete 'foreignness' of mind-set that longinus felt would be so off-putting to audiences. Just once, in a performance by an opera company prepared to lose some money

[pilamenon]

it would be a novel experience just once to see a production of an opera that attempted to re-imagine a setting that its contemporaries would have understood. Not for the purposes of being authentic, which as I said I think is a pointless enterprise, but for the purposes of trying to get into the thought-world of those distant writers and composers. Perhaps I am perverse in being interested in those very differences, that complete 'foreignness' of mind-set that longinus felt would be so off-putting to audiences. Just once, in a performance by an opera company prepared to lose some money

Agreed, though I suppose it's unlikely to happen. At least baroque opera does seem to be enjoying a revival, albeit with the compromises and anachronisms that you have pointed out. I wouldn't have predicted that a couple of decades ago.

But this review totally overstates the audience reaction in my view:

What was the audience on? Nurofen Plus? They tittered when the bicycles came on, nearly cried when the whip was unleashed and virtually pissed themselves when the warring sides in Handel's crusader fantasy Rinaldo started fighting it out with hockey and lacrosse sticks

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4411:bbc-proms-rinaldo-glyndebourne-opera&Itemid=27

And he's got it totally wrong about Dantone. "Unmusical"?

[Richard J.]

I was listening to Rinaldo on R3 last night, thinking "this is really good - why didn't I book tickets for it?". Having read this thread and the references to bicycles et al, I'm rather glad I stayed at home. Surely the point of semi-staging is to enable the singers to interact with each other while they're singing to each other. The odd prop on stage can help this, but bicycles?? In what way does this sort of anachronistic intrusion help one's appreciation of Handel's music?

My ideal for music of this period is what William Christie and Les Arts Florissants do at the Barbican. They put the orchestra at the back and use the front of the stage for the action, with no attempt to "modernise" it in ways that conflict with the context of the plot.