He knew what would work, and how to fix what wouldn't. Fourth, and not least, opera performances are titled, so that language is no longer a bar to enjoyment. Fifth, a species of countertenors has appeared in the last twenty years who can sing the music written for castrati on the correct pitches with all the beauty, agility and, damn it, the macho of lower voices, so that grown men can now be played by grown men in these works with no loss of musical elegance. So now we're ready for as delicious an evening as we get in Rinaldo. It doesn't hurt that David Daniels is becoming the first male alto superstar since the last castrati left the stage in Rossini's day.
Duets are sadly rare in Handelian opera, a machine driven by the ego of the solo singer.
Daniels, in contrast, always sings duets with an intensity of focus on his partner, as though styling and sizing his voice especially to suit hers, and both his partnerings in Rinaldo were exquisite. Taylor's countertenor is higher, brighter, but less sensuously throaty than Daniels'. A slight edge in the vocal honors, along with the better costumes and wilder emotions, went to the Saracen foe, and those who attended the performance on November 9 th would gladly have awarded them Jerusalem as well. But the night belonged to Christine Goerke's Armida, a dramatic coloratura on the Sutherland model, who has never before had a role in New York into which she could properly sink her teeth. Yet she never permitted the comedy to affect her splendid singing, by turns confident, furious and touchingly heartbroken.