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| Handel: Rinaldo - Agustín Pennino in rehearsal - Royal Academy Opera |
Handel's Rinaldo was the first opera he wrote for London, in 1711. It was astoundingly popular; the first full Italian opera seria written for London, it went on to have over 50 performances during Handel's lifetime in the period from 1711 to 1731. During this period, the opera went through a remarkable number of revisions. The title role was written for the castrato Nicolini, whose performances in London in the period 1707 to 1717 went a long way towards establishing Italian opera in the city. [Countertenor Randall Scotting's recent disc, Divine Impresario: Nicolini on Stage, explores the castrato's musical world, see my review].
Whilst the title role in the 1731 revival of Rinaldo was also given to another castrato, Senesino, in the intervening period revivals saw the title role sung by both castratos and female altos. During the modern period, revivals have similarly given the role to men and to women; at Glyndebourne Opera, Robert Carsen's 2011 production saw Sonia Prina as Rinaldo [see my review of the BBC Proms performance], but later revivals of the production would see the role given to countertenors Christophe Dumaux, Iestyn Davies [see my review], and Jake Arditti.
On 17 March 2025, Royal Academy Opera is presenting Handel's Rinaldo in a production directed by Julia Burbach and conducted by David Bates. Performances run until 20 March with the title role shared between Uruguayan countertenor Agustín Pennino and Australian-Maltese mezzo-soprano Ella Orehek-Coddington. I recently caught up with Ella and Agustin to find out how sharing a role in a production worked with two different voice types.
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| Handel: Rinaldo - Ella Orehek-Coddington in rehearsal - Royal Academy Opera |
As a countertenor, most of Agustín's repertoire is from the Baroque era and much of his work in the opera house has been on Handel's operas. With the role of Rinaldo, Agustín finds the tessitura to be perfect, it sits in the middle of his voice, and he has found himself learning so much during rehearsals. By contrast, Ella has not sung so much Handel and though she has sung roles in oratorios such as Theodora and Athalia, she had not hitherto sung a Handel coloratura role. As a young Wagnerian voice, Ella finds that Handel's music works well in her voice, and she has also sung Gluck's Orfeo. She cannot, yet, sing the long Wagnerian operas, and she would love to revisit more Handel roles.
During rehearsals, they are usually in the rehearsal room together, so that Agustín might rehearse a scene and then Ella would jump in. But they have separate coaching in the music. Working together like this, they find that they learn from each other. But they are different artists so inevitably they make different artistic decisions. There are a lot of possibilities in the character, and the find they see different things in the other.
They are both singing all the arias in the same keys. But their ornaments are different, each performs ornaments that apply to them and to their voice. Ella, who sings Zwischenfach roles (ones that sit between mezzo and soprano) has a higher tessitura voice than Agustín, and she takes her voice higher in the ornaments. Agustín feels that this difference can be most felt in the ornaments for 'Cara sposa', one of the opera's best-known arias, where the difference in ornaments points to differences in emotion. They are performing at standard pitch, 440 Hz, which was another bit of negotiation.
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| Handel: Rinaldo - Agustín Pennino in rehearsal - Royal Academy Opera |
Within the diversity of the character of Rinaldo, both singers can find possibilities, whether man or woman. But Ella points out that the physicality of the role tends to be more natural for a man and that she has to do more exploration. The opera is double cast throughout, so the differences in stagings will arise from exploring what works for the different casts.
The director, Julia Burbach, gives them space to be different, at times their different characterisation of the role suggests different thought processes for the character. During rehearsals Burbach allows both singers to explore in thoughtful, deeper way, and the deeper you go into the character the more different he becomes in each interpretation. Superficially, audiences are seeing the same Rinaldo, but they will get very different ideas from the two casts.
When I spoke to Agustín and Ella they had just been through the technical rehearsal and were getting ready to do a full run of the production, then coming up they had the sitzprobe with the orchestra and dress rehearsals the week after. Both singers agree that the conductor, David Bates, was very special indeed.
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| Handel: Rinaldo - Ella Orehek-Coddington in rehearsal - Royal Academy Opera |
Attitudes to the plot of Rinaldo can be quite polemical, and the story cannot completely be taken seriously, and it does not make a lot of sense to us today. Agustín felt that the production explores Handel's opera in a comic way but takes the story seriously, creating a balance between serious and comedy. Ella points out that it is a blend of modern and period visual ideas, done in a tasteful way. Both agree that Julia Burbach's concept is interesting and that the production is a thing by itself.
Further details from the RAM website.
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