Handel: Rodelinda
Soloists
Raglan Baroque Soloists
Nicholas Kraemer
Handel is another of those composers to whom I came late. I wrote about this in last year’s blog https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Handel and now Handel, with Rameau, is one of the composers I turn to more than almost any other.
I know several of the operas well but Rodelinda is one which I have not seen and I although I was familiar with some of the arias and the overture I hadn’t heard the whole opera before. What a superb work it is. Winton Dean in his seminal book on Handel’s operas says that Rodelinda is the third major masterpiece produced by Handel in less than twelve months, an achievement without parallel in the history of opera.
His enthusiasm for the piece is completely justified- this is a superb work which shows Handel at his very best. Aria after aria proceeds with an almost unbroken series of pieces of the highest quality. We get all of the moods from tragedy through to exuberance and excitement. It all seems effortless - the Vivaldi in the previous opera seemed rather laboured by comparison - but of course it is Handel’s genius that makes it all possible. Some of the music is absolutely ravishing and expressive. Handel’s harmony seems straightforward on the surface but in fact it is highly sophisticated with some extraordinary chromatic inflections.
This is the end of this short exploration of Baroque opera. I don’t find myself naturally sympathetic to the earlier composers but towards the end of the Baroque era Handel and Rameau in their very different ways are among the greatest of all opera composers and I return to them again and again. But the next stage of the project moves into very different territory. German romantic opera.
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