Handel on the Stand

By Michael Walsh

The Met stages Rinaldo, but does it do the composer justice?

For London audiences of the early 18th century, Italian opera meant heroic plots, lavish sets and dazzling vocalism. It also meant a German-born composer with an anglicized name who had successfully transplanted a hothouse species to the neighborhood around Covent Garden:

George Frideric Handel. For almost 30 years, while the operatic vogue was at its peak, Handel was the unquestioned master of the form. Despite his historic eminence, however, he was neglected by the Metropolitan Opera until last week, when it finally staged Rinaldo.

Designed for the National Arts Center of Canada in 1982, the production stars Mezzo Marilyn Home in one of her patented sword-and-breastplate roles. It is scenically spectacular, full of the kind of deus ex machina theatricality that so delighted baroque audiences: dragon-drawn chariots fly through the air belching smoke, monsters writhe, and looming castles collapse in a heap of rubble. Bright and vivid, Rinaldo is a bauble for the eye; as sung by an imposing cast that includes Bass Samuel Ramey and Soprano Benita Valente, it is a treat for the ear. But whether it serves Handel or the thorny cause of baroque opera faithfully is moot.

Like other composers of his day, Handel had a freewheeling notion of textual fidelity. He cannibalized hit tunes from earlier works, rewrote arias and substituted new ones. Further, baroque opera presents stylistic problems not encountered in the standard repertory. The plots, revolving around heroes of antiquity, seem remote, and the operas lack ensembles--trios, quartets, quintets--which vary the texture. Instead, they are constructed of a chain of solo arias that illuminate a character's state of mind; action is subordinated to internal rumination.

The Met production is essentially a vehicle for Home, in a title role composed for a castrate. The outlines of Handel's opera are preserved in the plot, which concerns the struggle for the Holy Land between the Crusaders, led by Rinaldo, and the Saracens, under Argante (Ramey) and the sorceress Armida (Soprano Edda Moser). But Martin Katz, Home's longtime accompanist, has conflated the 1711 and 1731 versions, trimming the recitatives, shortening some arias, shuffling others and even adding a duet from Handel's Ad-meto. It may be argued that Katz is only following a convention to which Handel subscribed. Yet Katz is not Handel; the composer's instincts offer surer musical logic and dramatic shape.

Still, the production, conducted by Mario Bernardi, has its attractions. No one can match Home in her nimble negotiation of the florid vocal line; she overwhelms its difficulties with an awesome display of rapid-fire articulation. As Al-mirena, Rinaldo's lover, Valente's limpid, graceful soprano contrasts appealingly with Ramey's dashing, formidable bass.

The storybook sets by Mark Negin would have pleased even the most discriminating Londoners, and Frank Corsaro's direction is swift and adept; the climactic battle, a combative ballet for 16 acrobats, liberates Jerusalem with martial savagery. Evidently the Met has taken to heart the intentions of Aaron Hill, Rinaldo's first producer: "to frame some Dramma that, by different Incidents and Passions, might afford the Musick Scope to vary and display its Excellence, and fill the Eye with more delightful Prospects, so at once to give two Senses equal Pleasure." If only it had considered a third: Handel's good sense. --By Michael Walsh