Rinaldo opened at the Queen’s Theatre, Haymarket, on 24th February 1711. The cast included the highly praised alto castrato Nicolò Grimaldi, known as Nicolini, as Rinaldo, the contralto Francesca Vanini- Boschi as Goffredo, the alto castrato Valentino Urbani, known as Valentini, as Eustazio, the soprano Isabella Girardeau as Almirena, the soprano Elisabetta Pilotti- Schiavonetti as Armida, the bass Giuseppe Maria Boschi as Argante, and the alto castrato Giuseppe Cassani as the Christian magician. The opera was successful and had fifteen performances in the season, with later revisions and performances in the following years. While Rinaldo won public success, there were those who took exception to the inevitable lack of verisimilitude. Addison, in particular, writing in The Spectator on 6th March, mocked the inclusion of real sparrows ‘to act the part of Singing Birds in a delightful Grove’, with the likely consequences of such casting, the description of Armida as an ‘Amazonian Enchantress’, the presence of a heterodox ‘Christian- Conjuror’, and ‘Nicolini exposed to a Tempest in Robes of Ermin, and sailing in an open Boat upon a Sea of Paste-Board’. Addison returned to the subject of opera in later papers, finding more to praise in Lully’s French opera. Whatever Addison’s objections, as the unsuccessful author of Rosamund, spectacle was an important part of Rinaldo, with the requisite transformation scenes common to Italian opera of the time and, indeed, to English semi-opera.

 

For Rinaldo Handel borrowed extensively from his earlier compositions.