#Handel&039;s Rinaldo

[wolfie-wolfgang]

Going to Naples and Sorrento - on an Italian opera trail.

Watching Mount Vesuvius from Sorrento, across the Bay of Naples, I thought of Pliny the Younger (born 61 AD), as you do, who wrote a detailed description of the catastrophic eruption of the volcano (79 AD) that killed his uncle, the great Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, who sailed into the disaster because he was interested in the science of volcanoes. Pliny the younger watched the destruction…

[thearbourist]

The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude - Lascia ch'io pianga

The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Lascia ch’io pianga

Its melodyis first found in act 3 of Handel’s 1705 opera Almira as a sarabande;[1] the score for this can be seen on page 81 of Vol. 55[2] of Friedrich Chrysander. Handel then used the tune for the aria “Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa”, or “Leave the Thorn, Take the Rose”, for the character Piacere in part 2 of his 1707 oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (which was much later, in…