Handel, Georg Frideric: Rinaldo

Rinaldo by Georg Frideric Handel
Cast: Paul Esswood, Ileana Cotrubas, Carolyn Watkinson, Charles Brett, Ulrik Cold, Jeanette Scovotti, Armand Arapian, Sophie Boulin, Nicole Leport &  Marie-Francoise Jacquelin with La Grande Ecurie et la Chambre du Roy conducted by Jean-Claude Malgoire.
Libretto by Aaron Hill and Giacomo Rossi
Label: CBS Masterworks
Catalogue number: 79308
Country of Issue: UK
Date: 1977
Premier Recording
Stereo
Analogue
Format: LP Boxed Set (3 discs plus booklet)
Label design:  CBS UK 2nd style beige
Discs: Near Mint, unmarked.
Outer box: Near Mint, tinest of marks on bottom corners
Inner sleeves: original, polylined, as new  though with evidence of handling
Booklet: full size 40pp, perfect, full libretto

This item appears as new throughout except as mentioned above. Acquired by us in 2007 as part of a large collection but never played since.

Aaraon Hill wrote the original English libretto around 1709,  and sent it a year or so later to Rossi for the Italian translation.  The premiere took place in February 1711;  Handel re-used a good deal of music he had employed in other operas, and has been scorend as a 'mosiac'  but its genius won through and it became  very succesful immediately.  Handel made alterations several times over the next six years and in 1731 wrote a totally different version of the part of Almirena. This world premiere recording follows the libretto of 1711 and the most relable parts of several published versions. A fine work,  in the words of the critic Burney: "It is so superior in composition to any opera of that period.."