Creative team

Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev

Director Robert Carsen

Orchestra Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

Cast includes

Rinaldo Elizabeth DeShong

Goffredo Avery Amereau

Almirena Giulia Semenzato

Argante Brandon Cedel

Eustazio Jakub Józef Orliński

Armida Kristina Mkhitaryan

A Christian Magus James Hall

“Robert Carsen’s witty and irreverent production comes roaring back to Glyndebourne with an all-new cast.

Christian knight Rinaldo loves Almirena, but she has been kidnapped by the scheming sorceress Armida. A magical battle of wits and wills ensues between Rinaldo’s Crusaders and the Saracen army, as the fate not just of two lovers but two nations hangs in the balance.

Carsen’s exuberant schoolroom staging brings out all the energy and excess in Handel’s first opera for the London stage. The composer’s colourful, tune-filled score – bright with brass fanfares and memorable arias including ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ – is one of his finest, sweeping the audience from laughter to love and back again, in this exotic, East-meets-West musical fantasy.”