Rinaldo (Complete opera)

Based on Tasso's Gerusalemme liberate, this Italian opera, the first that Handel wrote for London audiences, immediately enjoyed great success. It is true that it had all the necessary crowd-pleasing ingredients: the attraction of novelty and the surprising exoticism that the music expresses through its richly colourful orchestration.

René Jacobs was born in Ghent, where he later became a cathedral chorister. He studied classics and singing in Brussels, followed by a further period of study in The Hague. The Kuijken brothers, Alfred Deller and Gustav Leonhardt all encouraged him to specialise as a countertenor, and within a few years he has become one of the most eminent singers in this field, giving recitals all over the world.
Excited and inspired by the vast baroque repertoire that still remains to be discovered, René Jacobs founded the Concerto Vocale in 1977. His talent as a conductor has given him the opportunity to conduct the operas of Monteverdi, Cesti, Cavalli, Gluck and Handel on all the major stages of Europe and Japan. Most of these performances have been recorded as well and have obtained several prestigious awards. In 1991 René Jacobs was elected artistic director for the opera programme at the Innsbruck Festival.
He completed his Monteverdi cycle with Orfeo (HMC 901553.54), performed at the Salzburg Festival in 1993.
His particular passion is the Venetian opera, and the work and devotion he has given to this cause have found their ultimate expression in the recent production of La Calisto at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, internationally acclaimed as a major triumph (HMC 901515.17) - a production performed again in Berlin, Barcelona, Lyons and Montpellier. In his role as principal guest conductor and artistic adviser on early music with the Berlin Staatsoper, René Jacobs has produced Telemann's Orpheus (HMC 901618.19), Graun's Cleopatra e Cesare, Gassmann's Opera Seria with equal success - as well as Mozart's Cosi fan tutte (HMC 901663.65), a real triumph! A new production of Cosi is planned for the 2000 Festival of Aix-en-Provence.
René Jacobs teaches at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.