1711 version Goffredo Robert Ogden Almirena Susanna Marsh Rinaldo James Huw Jeffries Eustazia Kate Lawrence Argante Brian Wilson Armida Lina Saavedra Music director Antony Shelly Director Steven Stead Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra 1731 version Goffredo Warren Albers Almirena Andrea Brown Rinaldo Morag Boyle Argante Joanna Gamble Armida Henrietta Bewley Lady Maja Langford Magician Stefan Rumistrzewicz Conductor Antony Shelley Director Richard Gregson Academy Cadiera Birkbeck College and Academy Training Opera These performances are by students in the Birkbeck Advanced Performance programme. The two productions have been on alternatively. The 1711 version is performed in a "modern" production with modern instruments. The 1731 version is performed with the conventions from its original date and on period instruments. Surprisingly, I found the "modern" 1711 version, in the afternoon, much better all round. The director's programme note mentioned Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the mood was closer to The English Patient. Goffredo and Rinaldo were archaeologists in a generic middle eastern desert. Eustazio became Eustazia, a melancholy bluestocking, and Almirena a memsahib succumbing to sweaty eastern eroticism. The Muslim magicians Argante and Armida were out of Burton's Arabian nights. The military context was lost, until the end when Goffredo and Rinaldo donned tropical battle dress and their servants clobbered an imaginary Muslim army. The conflict between Christian and Muslim became that between "modern" west and decadent east. Argante and Armida appeared in black western dress when they converted. The main concept worked, and the set, consisting of white hangings for the westerners' tent and red shades for the magicians', was uncomplicated and elegant. But some of the plot got lost and some details didn't cohere. Almirena sang Lascia mi piangere in the middle of a bondage session with Argante (sort of all right, she is stifled by her background and is discovering new forms of desire). Rinaldo sang Or la tromba waving a bazooka around, as in Peter Sellars' Theodora, and became an egotistical buffoon after he was rescued from Armida. During the finale, Almirena departed along a railway track, as in Nicholas Lehnhoff's Parsifal. It's actually Eustazia who reflects vulnerable sensuality, marked in the production by a fascination with snakes and skulls, but she has almost no role in the plot. The today's cast (there were two casts for each production) was impressive. Susanna Marsh was a ladylike Almirena with a full voice. Lina Saavedra was wonderfully exotic as Armida. Kate Lawrence was an introspective Eustazia, not projecting enough, though she has a potentially very beautiful near-contralto voice. She was tall, gawky and bespectacled, interestingly ambivalent as Rinaldo's loyal pal. Robert Ogden as Goffredo sang clearly and precisely, but didn't quite have the military welly for a heroic role. (The production helped by making Goffredo a twitchy administrator instead of a general.) James Huw Jeffries, in contrast, had masses of voice as Rinaldo, and sounded superb, especially in his duets with the sopranos, though his physical acting was at times wooden. His performance of Cara sposa made me shiver. And he sang the ornament at the start of the recapitulation standing on one foot. Handel reworked the 1731 version for less expensive resources -- he couldn't afford a mountain or Eustazio, who becomes a silent super, or castratos. Almirena gets two more arias (I wonder if Bartoli will insist on doing them in the recording?) and arias are reassigned and switched in from other operas. This production was by the same director as the Cambridge Handel Society productions, and had similar tatty sets and historically informed gestures. The cast today ended up consisting almost entirely of low women's voices, which somehow made the singing less exciting. Though Henrietta Bewley looked and sounded interestingly feline as Armida. It was irritatingly clear that historically informed gestures and singing style don't make a Handel opera without the full stage setup. The music is designed to work with big effects, and if you don't replace them with something equally substantial, in the concept and performances, the production is simply incomplete. The period instruments were less bright in sound. The piccolo imitating the nightingale was heart-wrenching. But the braying brass wasn't an improvement on the modern instruments. I stuck it out to the end because I wanted to hear Or la tromba and the march again, but I didn't even get that. Oh well. At least the Sunday papers were there by the time I left.