0:00:01 > 0:00:03St Trinian's versus Harry Potter,
0:00:03 > 0:00:05first love, rites of passage,
0:00:05 > 0:00:08bicycles, bullies, bondage...
0:00:08 > 0:00:09It's a young boy's fantasy.
0:00:09 > 0:00:13Welcome to Handel's Rinaldo, 21st century style.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42Hello and welcome to Glyndebourne
0:00:42 > 0:00:43for Rinaldo
0:00:43 > 0:00:45by George Frederick Handel.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47It's 300 years since it was first performed
0:00:47 > 0:00:49at the Queen's Theatre in London's Haymarket.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52And it was the first opera that Handel had written in England.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54He was writing to show off.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57But he was also writing against a very tight deadline,
0:00:57 > 0:01:01so he cobbled together various arias and arrangements from other works.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Well, despite the hotchpotch origins of the piece,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06it's been hugely popular ever since day one,
0:01:06 > 0:01:09partly, of course, because of the beautiful music,
0:01:09 > 0:01:12but also because of the startling visual effects that he used.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14For example, on the very first night,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17he released a flock of starlings into the auditorium.
0:01:18 > 0:01:20The Spectator critic was scathing about it
0:01:20 > 0:01:23and said that they were shitting on everybody from up above
0:01:23 > 0:01:25for hours afterwards and days to come.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28And they couldn't get the birds out.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35Director Robert Carsen's vision echoes Handel's 1711 production
0:01:35 > 0:01:39by having special effects at every turn,
0:01:39 > 0:01:42but in a much more modern setting.
0:01:42 > 0:01:43LAUGHTER
0:01:43 > 0:01:45When you set about directing a production
0:01:45 > 0:01:47you don't usually start by,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49"Oh, I know, we'll put it in this set
0:01:49 > 0:01:51"or we'll put it in that."
0:01:51 > 0:01:52You try to figure out
0:01:52 > 0:01:54what it's about.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57And in the case of Handel's Rinaldo, it's quite difficult
0:01:57 > 0:02:01because the piece goes in so many different directions...
0:02:01 > 0:02:04The crusades are there, but it's not really about the crusades.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07And it occurred to me that one of the ways
0:02:07 > 0:02:12that we could deal with the strangeness of the construct
0:02:12 > 0:02:16was if one looked at all the elements through the eyes of a young boy.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19The whole adventure story,
0:02:19 > 0:02:22a young boy who wishes he were a hero but isn't,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25dreaming a kind of big daydream about the crusades.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28It's a big daydream about not being bullied,
0:02:28 > 0:02:31about being the hero of all of his own adventure stories,
0:02:31 > 0:02:34so that led us into this school setting.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39And so, the plot centres around a familiar backdrop for us all.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43The key characters are Rinaldo, played by a woman,
0:02:43 > 0:02:47whose fantasy as a crusader knight we follow throughout the opera.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51Goffredo, also played by a woman, leader of the Crusader army,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54with his brother Eustazio.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57And Goffredo's kind and gentle daughter Almirena,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00whom Rinaldo has fallen in love with.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09On the enemy side, we have Argante, the general of the Saracen army,
0:03:09 > 0:03:14and his lover Armida, formidable sorceress and Saracen Queen.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22In this production, I play Armida,
0:03:22 > 0:03:25who, in the beginning, is a school teacher,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28and then, in Rinaldo's fantasy,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31turns into a domineering,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33evil seductress,
0:03:33 > 0:03:36who wears this amazing tight rubber costume
0:03:36 > 0:03:41which makes her even more like Miss Whiplash.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47I'm supposed to be the King of Jerusalem
0:03:47 > 0:03:50but in this production actually I am a teacher.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54And in the dream of Rinaldo,
0:03:54 > 0:03:56I turn out to be actually an evil teacher.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03It's always nice to be the bad guy in a production.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05And I play the poor schoolboy
0:04:05 > 0:04:07that is being beaten for real
0:04:07 > 0:04:08in the overture,
0:04:08 > 0:04:09pretty hard actually.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16Well, Rinaldo, the dreaming schoolboy,
0:04:16 > 0:04:18is about to make his first appearance
0:04:18 > 0:04:20and it's time to join him in the classroom.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22And I should just say, it is meant to be funny,
0:04:22 > 0:04:25and you are allowed to laugh.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28Tonight's conductor is Ottavio Dantone,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31directing the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
0:04:31 > 0:04:33from the Harpsichord.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01THEY SCREAM
0:10:06 > 0:10:09SHE SINGS IN ITALIAN
0:24:25 > 0:24:31APPLAUSE
0:40:32 > 0:40:36WOODWIND IMITATES BIRDS SINGING
0:59:25 > 0:59:28APPLAUSE
1:10:57 > 1:10:59LAUGHTER
1:11:43 > 1:11:46LAUGHTER
1:12:49 > 1:12:50LAUGHTER
1:12:50 > 1:12:53APPLAUSE
1:12:58 > 1:13:02So Rinaldo has had his ET moment
1:13:02 > 1:13:05and has galloped away on his flying bicycle to rescue Almirena.
1:13:05 > 1:13:07Now, when Rinaldo was first performed,
1:13:07 > 1:13:09the role was written for a castrato,
1:13:09 > 1:13:11a male singer castrated before puberty
1:13:11 > 1:13:13so that his voice would stay high.
1:13:13 > 1:13:16Now, obviously, happily, this doesn't happen any more.
1:13:16 > 1:13:20So Rinaldo, like many of Handel's operatic roles, is sung by a woman.
1:13:20 > 1:13:24In this production, by contralto Sonia Prina.
1:13:24 > 1:13:27She's played Rinaldo many times before,
1:13:27 > 1:13:29but never as a tormented schoolboy.
1:13:31 > 1:13:34It was funny, because the first two weeks, Robert Carsen says to me,
1:13:34 > 1:13:39"You are a schoolboy, you are a schoolboy, you are a schoolboy.
1:13:39 > 1:13:41"But you are a very unlucky and...
1:13:41 > 1:13:44"a very nerd and strange schoolboy,
1:13:44 > 1:13:46"so you have to change completely your attitude
1:13:46 > 1:13:48"because we don't want to see the hero.
1:13:48 > 1:13:50"Maybe later on you can be a hero."
1:13:53 > 1:13:55He wanted to see this frail boy,
1:13:55 > 1:13:58that wouldn't become really something,
1:13:58 > 1:14:01accomplishing things in the opera.
1:14:03 > 1:14:05Singers are actors, but to be in the role,
1:14:05 > 1:14:08you have to do it from the inside.
1:14:08 > 1:14:12In the case of Sonia, it took a little while for her to understand
1:14:12 > 1:14:14that what I really wanted,
1:14:14 > 1:14:16because the whole story is told
1:14:16 > 1:14:17through Rinaldo's point of view,
1:14:17 > 1:14:19it's all happening to him
1:14:19 > 1:14:20because his imagination...
1:14:20 > 1:14:22He sees himself in these different adventures.
1:14:22 > 1:14:24So, like in a dream, or daydream,
1:14:24 > 1:14:26he kind of, you know, "I'm over here,
1:14:26 > 1:14:28"and I'm fighting these bad guys,
1:14:28 > 1:14:30"and then, I'm saving my girl,
1:14:30 > 1:14:33"and then, I have a disaster and I'm kidnapped."
1:14:33 > 1:14:35And all these things happen to him.
1:14:35 > 1:14:38And I'm really happy with how she has embraced that now.
1:14:41 > 1:14:44Actually, when I was at school I was really much studying,
1:14:44 > 1:14:46kind of a nerd, so I was like,
1:14:46 > 1:14:51so I really did my best to get rid of this kind of me,
1:14:51 > 1:14:54that was really me in a private life.
1:14:54 > 1:14:56And when he asked me to do that, I kind of said,
1:14:56 > 1:14:59"Not again, not again."
1:14:59 > 1:15:02So to be, I mean, the weak person, the weak guy,
1:15:02 > 1:15:07was very strange because I like very much to be a male on stage,
1:15:07 > 1:15:09but being very strong.
1:15:09 > 1:15:11This is my double personality.
1:15:11 > 1:15:13And, yeah, so it was very hard.
1:15:13 > 1:15:16But, actually, we...we got there.
1:15:19 > 1:15:21We've all been there, yeah?
1:15:21 > 1:15:24I mean, I was incredibly unpopular
1:15:24 > 1:15:25because I liked,
1:15:25 > 1:15:27when I was in high school,
1:15:27 > 1:15:28because I liked opera
1:15:28 > 1:15:29and nobody else did.
1:15:35 > 1:15:38I think she's discovered a way throughout the process
1:15:38 > 1:15:40to find a balance
1:15:40 > 1:15:42between this macho knight
1:15:42 > 1:15:44and this kind of scared little boy
1:15:44 > 1:15:47who gets bullied all the time at school.
1:15:49 > 1:15:54I find Sonia to be one of the best contralto singers
1:15:54 > 1:15:56at playing male characters.
1:15:56 > 1:16:02Having worked with her before, with her singing a male role,
1:16:02 > 1:16:04it feels pretty natural to me.
1:16:04 > 1:16:07Not that she's a manly woman, she's a beautiful woman as well,
1:16:07 > 1:16:09but when she gets on stage, you just, you...
1:16:09 > 1:16:12For me, I forget that she's a woman playing a man.
1:16:16 > 1:16:19It's a huge part she's got, I don't know how many arias
1:16:19 > 1:16:23and they range from these fast and furious revenge pieces
1:16:23 > 1:16:29to beautiful long lyrics, slow things to all kinds of stuff, really.
1:16:29 > 1:16:33As well as physically being very demanding, as you can see.
1:16:33 > 1:16:36I think audiences should appreciate the fact that
1:16:36 > 1:16:38they can hear something that is rare.
1:16:38 > 1:16:41Because there are not really so many contralto nowadays
1:16:41 > 1:16:45that can sing, you know, this kind of role
1:16:45 > 1:16:49and have this kind of coloratura and dynamics and colours in the voice.
1:16:56 > 1:16:57Act Two is about to start.
1:16:57 > 1:17:00And there's a very funny moment coming up
1:17:00 > 1:17:02when Armida's school girl warriors,
1:17:02 > 1:17:05now dressed up to look like Rinaldo's sweetheart Almirena,
1:17:05 > 1:17:08rise up from the waves like sirens
1:17:08 > 1:17:11to lure him into Armida's evil clutches.
2:05:10 > 2:05:17APPLAUSE
2:07:24 > 2:07:27LAUGHTER
2:15:05 > 2:15:08APPLAUSE
2:21:43 > 2:21:51APPLAUSE
2:24:38 > 2:24:41APPLAUSE
2:25:56 > 2:25:58LAUGHTER
2:31:00 > 2:31:02LAUGHTER
2:34:01 > 2:34:03APPLAUSE
2:41:34 > 2:41:38APPLAUSE
2:42:17 > 2:42:19LAUGHTER
2:42:29 > 2:42:31LAUGHTER
2:44:07 > 2:44:09SHE SCREAMS
2:49:06 > 2:49:09LAUGHTER
2:49:47 > 2:49:50APPLAUSE
2:50:07 > 2:50:10LAUGHTER
2:50:41 > 2:50:45ECHO
2:50:49 > 2:50:53ECHO
2:50:57 > 2:51:00ECHO
2:51:06 > 2:51:08ECHO
2:53:50 > 2:53:52LAUGHTER
2:54:01 > 2:54:02LAUGHTER
2:56:19 > 2:56:22LAUGHTER
2:56:27 > 2:56:28LAUGHTER
2:56:48 > 2:56:50LAUGHTER
2:57:10 > 2:57:13LAUGHTER
2:57:13 > 2:57:20APPLAUSE
2:58:39 > 2:58:42LAUGHTER
2:58:54 > 2:58:58THEY SCREAM
2:59:36 > 2:59:40THEY SCREAM
3:00:13 > 3:00:15LAUGHTER
3:05:32 > 3:05:40APPLAUSE
3:08:08 > 3:08:14APPLAUSE
3:08:16 > 3:08:18LAUGHTER
3:17:42 > 3:17:46APPLAUSE
3:22:20 > 3:22:23APPLAUSE
3:22:28 > 3:22:32SHRILL BATTLE CRY
3:23:33 > 3:23:35WHISTLE
3:23:37 > 3:23:39LAUGHTER
3:24:14 > 3:24:15WHISTLE
3:24:46 > 3:24:48LAUGHTER
3:25:12 > 3:25:13THEY SCREAM
3:25:13 > 3:25:21ALL: Rinaldo! Rinaldo! Rinaldo!
3:27:42 > 3:27:45APPLAUSE
3:30:37 > 3:30:40Subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing viewers by Red Bee Media Ltd.