George Friedrich Händel - Lascia ch'io pianga mia cruda sorte, from Rinaldo, opera, HWV 7, 1711 | Philippe Jaroussky, 2016.
"Lascia ch'io pianga
mia cruda sorte,
e che sospiri
la libertà.
Il duolo infranga
queste ritorte
de' miei martiri
sol per pietà.
"Let me weep over
my cruel fate,
and that I may sigh for
freedom
Let my sadness shatter
these chains
of my suffering,
if only out of pity.
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Lascia ch’io pianga, originally Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa, is an Italian-language soprano aria by composer George Frideric Handel that has become a popular concert piece. Its melody is first found in Act III of Handel’s 1705 opera Almira as a sarabande; the score for this can be seen on page 81 of Vol. 55 of Chrysander. Handel then used the tune for the aria Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa, or Leave the Thorn, Take the Rose, for the character Piacere in Part II of his 1707 oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (which was much later, in 1737, revised as Il trionfo del Tempo e della Verità). Four years after that, in 1711, Handel used the music again, this time for his London opera Rinaldo and its Act II aria Lascia ch’io pianga, or Leave Me to Weep, sung by the character Almirena, a soprano role taken by Isabella Girardeau in the premiere. Rinaldo was a triumph, and it is with this work that the aria is chiefly associated.
After composing two Italian operas for Hamburg, two Italian oratorios for Rome, and a third Italian opera for Venice, George Frideric Handel moved to England in 1710 to compose his first Italian opera for London. Produced in the Queen's Theater in the Haymarket on February 24, 1711, Rinaldo would certainly have been an enormous success if the librettist and impresario Aaron Hill had not neglected to pay the tradesmen, thereby causing the Lord Chamberlain to revoke Hill's theater license nine days after the premiere. But Rinaldo paved the way for the quick success of Handel and Italian opera in London and the work was revived in 1712, then again in 1717, and again in 1731.
Hill's libretto is based on Tasso's epic poem on the First Crusade Gerusalamme liberata, but with a new plot and a new female lead to give the story appeal to a then-contemporary London audience. Handel's music is in part a pastiche drawn from many of his earlier dramatic works, and in part a newly composed work with deeply expressive arias and recitative adorned with extravagant trumpet and woodwind writing. Together, Hill's libretto and Handel's music create a powerful and plangent opera with strong and sympathetic leads in Rinaldo and Almirenda and a superbly coherent and convincing score.