Opera

Handel's Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Krzysztof Warlikowski (stage director), Emmanuelle Haïm (conductor) – With Sabine Devieilhe (Bellezza), Franco Fagioli (Piacere), Sara Mingardo (Disinganno)...

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Cast

Krzysztof Warlikowski — Stage director

Małgorzata Szczęśniak — Set designer, costume designer

Christian Longchamp — Dramaturgy

Felice Ross — Lighting designer

Claude Bardouil — Choreographer

Denis Guéguin — Video

Sabine Devieilhe — Bellezza

Franco Fagioli — Piacere

Sara Mingardo — Disinganno

Michael Spyres — Tempo

Le Concert d'Astrée

Emmanuelle Haïm — Conductor

Program notes

Composed in 1707 in Rome, Handel's Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno is an oratorio in two parts with a libretto written by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. Staged by Krzysztof Warlikowski and conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, this sublime performance was presented at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2016.

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

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