Handel's Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno was Handel's first oratorio and features four allegorical characters: Beauty, Pleasure, Time and Disappointment. "Beauty chooses to ignore that existence is finite, preferring to admire herself in the mirror of Pleasure. But Time and Truth constantly remind her that 'beauty is a flower that blooms in a day and then dies'".

Under the baton of Emmanuelle Haïm, the Concert d'Astrée accompanied a brilliant cast featuring Sabine Devieilhe (Bellezza), Franco Fagioli (Piacere), Sara Mingardo (Disinganno) and Michael Spyres (Tempo).

This oratorio is a scandal. Reading its libretto is a shock. It's a purely dogmatic work whose title mirrors works from Stalin's Russia. Every performance of Trionfo should be preceded by a commentary discussing its ideological content […]. We are far from the Greeks and their mythology. We are in Rome, at the heart of religious power, in the center of the Counter-Reformation. Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Picture: © Pascal Victor