G. F. Händel: 'Rinaldo', Lascia ch'io pianga - Joyce DiDonato, mezzo

Lascia ch’io pianga (“Let me cry”) is an aria composed by Georg Friedrich Händel; famous without a doubt, among the best known of the author, initially thought as “sarabande”, it was transported to the oratorio “Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” with an allegorical text in which it was exhorted to enjoy the moment, “to take the rose and ignore the thorns”, and then reappear in the opera “Rinaldo”, with a different writing, which was a sincere cry in the mouth of a captive, Almirena, for the freedom lost at the hands of the sorceress Armida. The melancholic tone, the dance imprint, soft as a hug, denotes, in effect, its sarabande origin. Its musical force perfectly supports both the moral text of “Il Trionfo” and the dramatic but dignified and contained cry of Almirena. Harmony, tone and cadence that, with the amplitude of the form, serve to show both the passing of the hours, devastating murders of roses and how many beautiful flowers of a day have existed, as well as the pain for lost freedom, for humiliated nobility and dethroned by the most brutal despotism, when Almirena implores with dignity to be allowed to cry.