#goffredo

[frmurasaki]

Same energy btw

[rubywolf0201]

Don’t think I’ve mentioned this but I’m watching Always A Catch and I’m enjoying it sm.

Anyways here is my stupid (affectionate) cutie patootie daughter.

Oh and also here’s one of her gay ass older brother figures attendants because they deserve it.

[unulf0]

what's gotten into you?

notation is the opening of "cara sposa," rinaldo's outfit is modelled on one in an illustration from a mughal edition of the shahnameh.

[unulf0]

sigh. i have to admit. tenor goffredo from 1731 rinaldo has grown on me. more than that, possibly. i quite like how he was given eustazio’s act 2 scene 1 aria.

[unulf0]

anyways, i should probably talk about my vision for the cast of rinaldo. funny little chess piece fellows.

♞ rinaldo ( black knight ) - i mean, he’s a knight. oh, yeah, and the leaping movement of the knight piece is reflected in some scenes, i suppose. in particular, i’m thinking of “venti, turbini” and the scene where he disappears, only to reappear as armida’s captive ( does this make sense? )

♚ almirena ( black king ) - utterly powerless, but also a central figure in the game. her capture by armida ends the first act ( and is the indirect catalyst for things to go south in the later acts ).

♛ goffredo ( black queen ) - i’ve explained this before, i’ll explain it again- he doesn’t do much in the beginning ( like how a queen normally comes into play later, due to being blocked ), but he is powerful. he’s in charge.

♝ eustazio ( black bishop ) - begins right by his queen’s ( goffredo’s ) side. also worth the same amount of points as the knight ( rinaldo ), and i feel like that adds a nice balance to things.

♕ armida ( white queen ) - similar to goffredo. she’s in charge. but by the point where we enter the story, her “pawns” are all over the place and thus she has the space to move. also one of the reasons i made her WHITE queen specifically was for the sake of visuals- the white queen’s starting square ( armida’s “home base” ) is a black square, and i really liked the image of armida contrasted against all these shadowy backdrops.

♔ argante ( white king ) - he’s a literal king, though here his role is also meant to reflect his subservience to armida. we love him for that.

and the side characters… the herald is a pawn, the weird magical guys are just whatever because by that point, it’s not even a game of chess anymore.

[unulf0]

i would just like to inform everyone that i had apparently been rinaldoing out so hard last night, i passed out sometime past 5AM and had a dream about this absolutely trippy novel about goffredo and his involvement with some secret cabal of time-travelling magi where rinaldo and almirena only appeared in about two scenes. i doubt anyone other than me would read it if it were real.

[unulf0]

i have gripes with most of handel’s male alto + soprano characters being labelled as “mezzo-soprano trouser roles,” but frustratingly i can’t word why.

but there’s one thing i can put my finger on- how they’re so often said to be mezzos when yeah, sure, mezzos are expected to play alto roles and vice versa, but some of these characters were originally written for specific actors who were altos/contraltos- think senesino and whoever. not mezzos.

i suppose what i’m saying is it comes down to authorial intent. if the composer intends this Little Guy to be a mezzo trouser character, then that’s what they are. but if that’s not what was originally intended, then… yeah.

again, i don’t really know how to word my thoughts or pinpoint exactly what bothers me about this, but it does bother me.

[unulf0]

shoutout to goffredo rinaldo

guys who are both dad and countertenor <3<3<3