Customer Reviews

Pangaea

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This is a magnificent recording with an absolute dream cast. Despite its historical context within the late 11th century battles between the Crusades and the Saracens, Handel's "Rinaldo", written in the early 18th century, is actually a fanciful tale of love, devotion and betrayal populated by kings and warriors, fair maidens and sorcerers. It has all the elements of a great period action movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

You need a real vocal swashbuckler in the title role, and countertenor David Daniels is ideally suited with a rarefied voice that is alternately heroic and romantic. With his stunning coloratura and dramatic intensity, it would be hard to imagine anyone better as the conflicted Christian hero Rinaldo, who can lead an entire army to take Jerusalem but still have trouble taking his true love Almirena away from the hands of evil magicians. Daniels is particularly convincing with the music that reflects his deep love for her, in particular, with Rinaldo's famous lament, "Cara sposa, amante cara, dove sei?". The beauty of his timbre really flows out of him in what seems like an effortless manner, and provides proof positive that his is a special talent. As great as he is here, Daniels actually surpassed this performance two years later in David Alden's audacious update of the opera, staged in Munich in 2001 and luckily captured on DVD two years later (also strongly recommended). While not the most ideal interpreter of Handel, superstar mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli displays her supreme technique as Almirena. Her style is famously full of dramatic fire, but one gets the sense that a more plaintive manner would be more appropriate for such a lovelorn character. I kept thinking she could have been better cast as the sorceress Armida were it as important a role. At times, her presence is so overwhelming that she singes some of the more openly yearning arias with her bravura technique and amazing range. Ironically though, she and the more delicately toned Daniels meld together perfectly on their brief duets, notably "Scherzano sul tuo volto", and she certainly delivers the goods on the sonorous "Lascia ch'io pianga", likely the most definitive recorded version on the market now.

In a "pants" role, i.e., a female playing a male, mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink convincingly plays the Christian army general Goffredo, who almost acts like the chorus for all the action. Although the role is a bit passive, she lends a beautiful tone to all her pieces. Soprano Luba Orgonasova plays Armida, a sorceress that requires a singer to convey a concurrent sense of sensuality and melodrama, especially as she seduces and then falls in love with the stalwart Rinaldo. She falls a bit short though not at the sacrifice of communicating the fury of feelings which cause her change of heart. Quite impressive is baritone Gerald Finley, who is pitch perfect and provides clear diction as Argante, the King of Jerusalem. Perhaps because his voice is so dramatically deeper than anyone else's in the cast, he fully captures the dominating presence of his character. Amazingly there are two other countertenors in this stellar cast, which just shows how versatile this voice type truly is. Bejun Mehta brings a velvety quality to his aria, "Andate, o forti, fra stragi e morti"; and Daniel Taylor, with his choirboy innocence, does as well as he can in the least interesting role of Goffredo's brother Eustazio, especially with the lovely "Siam prossimi al porto", which opens Act II.

I love how characters will sing successive couplets culminating in some amazingly dulcet tones. Sound effects of thunder and battle and even simulations of birdsongs provide effective bridges between pieces and acts. Special praise should go to conductor Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music for the authentically dramatic sound of the period instruments. This is one of Handel's great early works, and we are lucky to have it preserved in such an exemplary manner here. Make sure to reserve three hours of your time to listen to this opera in total as it should be experienced. An absolute must-have for Baroque music aficionados.

I am very glad that the Handel operas are being looked at and recorded - usually very well - nowadays. When I was younger there were occasional arias, but the writing for castrati created problems that were hard to overcome.

People would accept "pants" roles for women playing young men, but full fledged gender bending was hard to accept for most. As was the counter-tenor voice when it first appeared.

Nowadays, we are pretty much past that and can have women singing the roles or the use of counter-tenors is quite popular. Here we have both, we have Bernarda Fink ably singing as Goffredo, a captain of the armies and David Daniels and David Taylor singing counter tenor roles very well indeed.

The director, Christopher Hogwood, seems to always go for voices that have some special quirkiness about them (character?). He does that again on this recording. Yes, the voices are all good. (You may or may not like any individual voice in a specific role, but they do all sing well.) And there is some awfully gorgeous ensemble singing.

This is a studio recording and sounds pretty good. The orchestra sounds especially nice.

This is a very good opera and has a lot of excellent qualities that I hope keep it around for a long time. You could do a lot worse than getting this version of Rinaldo into your collection.

This isn't a critic. This is the best recording of 'Rinaldo' that you can find in the market at this moment. Daniels and Bartoli are simply extraordinary, but all the roles are sang with a very high nivel. I specially enjoy with Bernarda Fin, Liuba Orgonasova, Gerarld Finley and Bejun Metha.
Fantastic also the Academy of Ancient Music and Horwoogd. You must have it!

Desde su estreno, ha sido "Rinaldo", una de las obras mas populares de Handel. Eso no extrañara a nadie que haya escuchado cualquiera de sus arias, las que siempre envuelven y se quedan en la memoria para nunca olvidar. Esta grabacion, lidereada por el siempre magnifico Hogwood, le ayudara a comprenderlo. El elenco es estelar y, aunque a veces se piense que la voz del protagonista debe tener mas presencia, David Daniels sabe darle a su Rinaldo un aura de majestuosidad poco vista en otras grabaciones. La Almirena de la Bartoli es de lujo, lastima que su personaje cante tan poco en una obra tan extensa. Las palmas tambien para los villanos, dibujados con efectividad por Luba Orgonasova y Gerard Finley. La hechicera de la soprano tiene momentos de gran impacto y el Argante del baritono es el mejor de la discografia. La Fink recrea un Gofredo de altos quilates, precioso de voz y justo en lo dramatico. Quizas lo mas palido en la grabacion sea el Eustazio de Taylor, de voz opaca y monotona. Los pequeños papeles cumplen con efectividad, sobresaliendo sin lugar a dudas, el Mago Cristiano de Bejun Mehta, un contratenor para tener en cuenta. Todo esto, unido a una magnifica Academy of Ancient Music y a unos efectos de estudio (truenos y cantos de pajaros) espectaculares, hacen de esta opera un regalo para los oidos; como para no perdersela.

This is a fine recording of Rinaldo, Handel's first great success on the London stage. As might be expected from the cast, conductor, and orchestra, this is an excellent performance. I am not sure that the opera has the zest of some of Handel's later great operas, but it is very, very enjoyable.

Nunca havia me entusiasmado com nenhuma ópera de Handel, em sua integralidade, apenas com árias esparsas, até ouvir essa gravação: Realmente brilhante!! Porém o que mais me chamou atenção não foram as interpretações de Bartoli ou Daniels, e sim as de Orgonasova ( vocalmente perfeita - coloratura consistente)e Finley. Bartoli está correta, desempenhando seu papel com a competência habitual, mas sem a mesma emoção que imprime nos papéis mozartianos ou rossinianos de seu repertório. Daniels confirma a promessa e mostra-se um rival a altura de Andreas Scholl ou Gerard Lesne, considero-o um sucesso.

One cannot but regret the choice of the interpret of the title role for this recording. Yes Daniels is a very elegant singer, but his Rinaldo sounds really lame and little heroic compared to contralto Ewa Podles'. Considering the number of arias Rinaldo needs to sing, a little more excitement would have been a welcome bonus. This is especially frustrating as, during the 1999 concert performances of Hogwood and the AAM throughout Europe, Podles was the one singing the title role next to Bartoli's Almirena and to great acclaim (Daniels eventually sang it once or twice for the London performances) and I had hope that we would finally get her account of the role on record.
Get it for Bartoli's unusually lively Almirena, the wonderfully sang couple of "baddies" of Finley and Orgonosova, but for a jaw-dropping interpretation of Rinaldo with "balls", get the Podles'Haendel arias CD from Delos.