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Trying On Handel
17th Century Aria Is Given a Live Run Through in the Studio
Why Handel’s Lascia?
Tess Primack mentioned she was prepping for an audition that required proficiency in early 18th century opera stylings, a genre outside her show tune wheelhouse. I sent over a couple Italian arias lodged in my head after years of closeted listening to European classical music.
Next time we met I sat down and played for her not another Ray Charles impromptu but instead a rendition of George Frederick Handel’s Lascia that I’d picked out by ear a while back. When Tess jumped in to sing it was clear her faking was more polished than mine. We agreed that a formal duet would be a good exercise. What started as fun then turned into an intermittent obsession with the track and a sequence of dinner-then-rehearsal sessions.
The final live recording, including video, is here.
Some History
The aria was first performed in 1711 in London as part of the opera Rinaldo, which is generally recognized as the first Italian opera written specifically for the English stage. In fact the Lascia melody was used in earlier works by Handel and was recycled for Rinaldo.
The set up: At the time of the Crusades a maiden Almirena is abducted and imprisoned. Before her captor she weeps over her separation from her lover Rinaldo. Her attentive captor, turns out, has fallen in love-at-first sight with her.
About Tess
She’s a singer/actor working here in the New York City theater world. Graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s Drama program. Check out her impressive credentials at www.TessPrimack.com.
Tess is also my niece. When she shows up here for meals we usually end up in my studio tossing around music ideas. It can get ugly.
You can also listen to to our earlier collaboration Once Upon a Weekend, a cabaret-blues original included on the album Stowaways.
– Paul Mark
