“The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment”, set to music in the spring of 1707 by Georg Friedrich Händel, is certainly the most successful and resounding work among those written by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj. Lived between 1653 and 1730, the Roman ecclesiastic was a passionate man of culture, protector of artists and musicians, collector and client. His libretto entitled Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno was set to music by the twenty-two-year-old Handel during his stay in Rome.
The story is simple and edifying. Beauty lives under the spell of Pleasure until Time and Disillusionment convince her to take a new path of repentance and devout austerity. Consisting of two parts, it includes some of Handel’s most beautiful arias (in particular the haunting “Lascia la spina”).
The masterpiece of Handel’s youth is staged for the first time at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Gianluca Capuano. In the installation conceived by Carsen, already successfully presented in 2021 at the Salzburg Festival, the moral parable that opposes Beauty, Pleasure, Time and Disillusionment is reread in the language of the talent show of the digital age: Carsen compares the opulence and vanity of the baroque century with today’s mass media society, obsessed with youth and consumption. The director transforms the baroque allegory into a modern scenic experience, in which lights, gestures and symbols create a bridge between the Roman eighteenth century and the questions of the present: fleeting and transitory pleasure contrasted with truth and awareness.
“Our production will seek to examine what it means, in a world driven by consumerism and obsessed with youth and beauty, which constantly encourages us to feed our appetite for vanity, self-interest and pleasure, to try to find the time to develop the enlightenment that can lead to spiritual fulfillment and truth,” explains the Canadian director, already the author of directions highly appreciated by audiences and critics at the Teatro Costanzi.
“I love to repeat that Handel is the Shakespeare of music because he knows how to draw musically from unexplored psychological depths. The excavation into the character of the characters, and the allegories of the Triumph are no exception, derive essentially from the adherence to the word, which is the great innovation of the second Monteverdian practice, of which Handel is the favorite heir. To this is added the remarkable ability in the use of rhetoric, studied from an early age, in music. The key to my interpretations it is based on an valorization and awareness of the rhetorical element in music”, explains maestro Capuano, already on the podium with the same production in 2021 in Salzburg.
The cast brings together leading voices in the baroque panorama. Johanna Wallrotha Swedish soprano making her debut at the Costanzi, is Bellezza, the key character of the oratorio. He was part of the Opernstudio of the Wiener Staatsoper and performed on stages such as the Opernhaus Zürich and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, as well as concert halls such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Musikverein of Vienna and the Philharmonie de Paris. Anna Bonitatibus takes on the role of Piacere. Winner of the 2015 International Opera Awards in the CD (Operatic Recital) category for Semiramide – La Signora Regale, she is among the most appreciated Italian interpreters of Handel. The countertenor Raffaele Pea specialist in the Händelian repertoire, is Disinganno. Pe returns to the Rome Opera after performing Handel’s Giulio Cesare in 2023 directed by Damiano Michieletto. He also founded the ensemble La Lira di Orfeo, with which he carries out philological research and the rediscovery of the ancient repertoire. Ed LyonBritish tenor, plays Tempo. Trained at St John’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music and the National Opera Studio, he has collaborated with ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by masters such as William Christie, Emmanuelle Haïm and René Jacobs.
The show debuts at the Costanzi Theater on April 7th at 8pm. Four more performances will follow until April 14th.
