"Rodelinda" with Jeanine De Bique and Jakub Józef Orliński

“Rodelinda” with Jeanine De Bique and Jakub Józef Orliński

At the Opéra de Lille, Handel’s “Rodelinda” regains its full dramatic power in a production staged by Jean Bellorini and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm at the head of Le Concert d’Astrée. An intense Baroque drama now available to watch in streaming.

Premiered in London in 1725, Rodelinda is one of Handel’s most dramatic operas. At the Opéra de Lille in 2018, French stage director Jean Bellorini offers a reading seen through a child’s eyes, supported by a cast deeply experienced in the Baroque repertoire and the direction of Emmanuelle Haïm leading Le Concert d’Astrée, where the continuo becomes a true theatrical engine.

Rodelinda, the theatre of power

Premiered in London in 1725, Rodelinda is one of Handel’s most tightly drawn operas, a drama of the throne in which private emotion becomes political. The libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym, after Corneille and Antonio Salvi, places the queen before the blackmail of the usurper Grimoaldo, ready to do anything to save her son. In Lille, Jean Bellorini lets the action unfold through the gaze of a child, the discreet driving force of a plot shaped by betrayal, return, and forgiveness.

A cast steeped in the Baroque repertoire

The Lille production brings together a cast closely associated with Handelian repertoire, capable of combining dramatic projection with precision of musical line. Jeanine De Bique appears as Rodelinda, alongside Tim Mead as Bertarido, Benjamin Hulett as Grimoaldo, Avery Amereau as Eduige, Jakub Józef Orliński as Unolfo and Andrea Mastroni as Garibaldo.

The continuo as a real theatrical driving force

At the head of Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm, also playing the harpsichord, highlights the dramaturgical role of the continuo, an essential element of Baroque opera. For this production, five instruments accompany the singers in changing combinations depending on the scene: two harpsichords, a lute, a cello and a double bass. Organized in two groups, they answer one another and recombine according to the characters and their emotional states. Some scenes favour an intimate colour, others a denser texture, giving the recitatives great flexibility and turning the continuo into a genuine partner in the drama.