Operas Based on Tasso - Rinaldo, Armide, Armida, Il Combattimento Di Tancredi E Clorinda, Tancrede (Paperback)

Chapters: Rinaldo, Armide, Armida, Il Combattimento Di Tancredi E Clorinda, Tancrede. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 41. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Rinaldo (HWV 7) is an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, now a part of the standard operatic repertoire. The Italian libretto was written by Giacomo Rossi based on episodes of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata ("Jerusalem Delivered"). It is a heroic story of battle and love set in the time of the First Crusade (10961099). Rinaldo was the first opera Handel produced for London and the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in The Haymarket on 24 February 1711. It was a great success thanks in part to the participation of two of the leading castrati of the era, Nicolo Grimaldi and Valentino Urbani. The strains of financing its grand production, however, resulted in liens from the unpaid craftsmen, and the Lord Chamberlain's office revoked the impresario Aaron Hill's license nine days after the opening of Rinaldo. The pastoral idyll of the plot (Armida's hate for the crusaders turned into love for one crusader, Rinaldo) appealed to many Baroque artists; see also List of operas set in the Crusades. The libretto was initially written in some form by Aaron Hill, who had taken up the management of the Queen's Theatre for the season 171011, and translated into Italian by Rossi, as opera seria in any other language was unthinkable on the London stage. The extent of Hill's involvement is disputed: in modern terms it might be said that he provided the "treatment" of Tasso's poem. Hill provided a preface to the published libretto, outlining his artistic purposes, which were to add to recently heard imported Italian operas, which, however, had been "composd for ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=38216