A Conversation Across Centuries

BY LOUISA PROSKE

The more I delve into the wondrous universe of Handel’s operas, the more I regard Handel as our contemporary. He wrote about corrupting power and political intrigue, about selfobsession, narcissism, celebrity, and self-promotion, about the entanglement of romance, power, and greed, and, always, about the mind-boggling complexities of human psychology. His enigmatic works at once satisfy our craving for glorious spectacle and adventure, taking us outside of our everyday selves, and they lead us deeper into the recesses of our psyche, taking us inside our own hearts and desires. Handel is our friend and our commentator, and he is speaking to us across centuries with his miraculous music and delirious stories.

When do we need opera most? This is a question I always seek, in one way or another, to answer in my productions. Rinaldo is a story about a hero who aborts his mission in order to save his beloved. Its imagination is wild, its proportions epic—it puts on stage an enchanted castle, a magician in a cave, a heroine abducted by a black cloud, a sorceress who shapeshifts, an entrance by dragon-drawn carriage through the sky, and no less than three battles, featuring knights, demons, and special magic wands. The imagination is child-like but the stakes are life or death. That, for me and my team, was the beginning of creating a world for this opera.

The suffering of children has always posed a special problem for philosophy and theology. How could a just God allow innocent beings to suffer and to die? Doctors at children’s clinics confront these questions every day, and they face families whose lives are turned upside down by their child’s sickness. “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick,” writes Susan Sontag. “Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” I was intrigued by the idea of the story of Rinaldo coming from “that other place"—its strangeness and impulsiveness springing from the fantasy of a young patient trying to make sense of his bewildering experience, and from his childlike desire to rescue another young patient, who not only comes alive in the story, but whose imagination in turn starts to influence it. The Baroque sensibility loves “chiaroscuro,” the sharp contrast of entwining darkness and light to offset and heighten each other. So even though our visual design is far removed in time from Handel’s world, I believe that letting the fanciful joy of invention of Rinaldo spring from quite a dark, existential origin is in keeping with the essential Baroque spirit of embracing opposites—as well as letting Handel speak to us in the here and now.

What is heroic? What is courage? What does it mean to cross a threshold? To face terror? To gain victory? I want to take you on an adventure, and I want to create a space full of urgency, surprises, and complex resonance for these questions and for Handel’s sublime music. Thank you for coming on this journey with us!