Then Mime asks, What is the race which lives on the stage? And Wotan answers, On the stage live those consummate artists, the singers.
The beautiful and terrifying images that serve as scenery allow us, the audience, to experience the various often contradictory levels on which the work operates at once, as magic, as myth.
The opening night of Rinaldo showed unmistakeably that baroque opera, even so-called opera seria, can be fun.
The two leads are chimera – transforming themselves into a formidable range of characters in this outstanding production.
Just like the source material, this is a morality tale, a fantasy to reflect dysfunction, rectify disappointment and repair disillusion but legacy and intergenerational grief are tenacious task masters.