Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Which path should Beauty take? To Pleasure, which invites her to forget her finitude - or to the life of asceticism extolled by Time and Disillusion? This is the argument at the heart of Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Handel's first oratorio for Catholic Rome, written in 1707 to a libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili. If the title itself (“The Triumph of Time and Disillusion”) indicates the outcome of the debates and struggles between the four allegorical characters, pleasure prevails in the dazzling score by the then 21-year-old Handel. This virtuoso work features a number of arias whose echoes would later be heard in other scores, such as “Lascia la spina, cogli la rosa” (Leave the thorn, pick the rose)... leading to the famous “Lascia ch'io pianga” (Let me weep) in the opera Rinaldo (1711).

A great connoisseur of Handel, whose works he has performed both in concert and on the operatic stage, William Christie conducts Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in its entirety for the first time at the helm of Les Arts Florissants. For the occasion, he has enlisted the services of four exceptional young singers, spotted at the Juilliard School in New York and at the Jardin des Voix academy, to convey the full intensity and brilliance of this oratorio.