The start of George Frideric Handel’s operatic career in London is spectacular: His Rinaldo, first given in 1711, is a tale of crusaders intent on freeing the holy city of Jerusalem from the “infidels”. But the Christian warrior Rinaldo soon loses his way on a bewildering battleground where he is pulled this way and that between Europe and the Orient, magic and sorcery, virtue and sexuality. What use is heroism in a war for the true faith that is barely winnable? In her production, Nadja Loschky focuses not on the clash of two political and religious systems, but on Rinaldo as the victim of a murderous war in whose mind’s eye the opulent scenes of Handel’s opera unfold. The score Handel wrote for his crusaders and Ottoman warriors, for the Christian princess Almirena and the sorceress Armida was perhaps his most magnificent and diverse. His arias are character studies which at the same time drive a dramatic plot. Francesco Corti, one of the most exciting conductors of Baroque music of our day, leads the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

A co-production with La Monnaie / De Munt Brussels

In Italian with German and English surtitles

Introduction to the work 30 minutes before curtain-up