Beethoven called Handel “the master of us all,” and advised "Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means." Interesting how often "simple" is used to describe this far from simple music. Samuel Butler put it nicely: "Handel is so great and so simple that no one but a professional musician is unable to understand him.“
Thus, English opera stepped out of the baroque. Where Purcell (1659-1695) had offered measured recitative and lifelike dramatic pace, Handel (1685 – 1759) was to offer, not many years later, the first English version of European opera seria. And within his lifetime, the English audiences turned against it. The milestone was the poet John Gay's work, The Beggar's Opera (1728) satirizing serious opera, to folk tunes and country melodies. (More about Gay - and the attractions of his opera to the English - in later weeks.)
It happened fast. Handel had dominated the musical world since coming to London, though he wasn't even English. Rinaldo in 1711 was first ever opera composed specifically for the London theatre. The premiere performance took place at the Queen's Theatre in Haymarket. Acis and Galatea (1718, from a poem by John Gay) was Handel's first opera in English. In 1719, he was appointed Master of the Orchestra at the Royal Academy of Music, the first Italian opera company in London. Between 1724 and 1725, he produced three whole operas - including Giulio Cesare. In 1726 he became a British citizen and the following year formed the New Royal Academy of Music. He did very well from it financially (and profited also from slavery). But from 1728, opera in the Italian style was out of favour in England - and the fortunes of Handel declined, as did his health.
[Italian opera] went into decline for a variety of reasons, one of them being the impatience of the English with a form of entertainment in an unintelligible language sung by artists of whose morals they disapproved. But despite the vagaries of public taste, Handel went on composing operas until 1741, by which time he had written more than 40 such works. Britannica
Read all about his life and musical shifts in the fascinating biography from The Gramophone. And here is Sefan Zweig's account of Handel's last years.
Some of his best works - from a huge output - came late in his life. That's more amazing when you know he had stroke in 1737, was involved in a coach crash in 1750 and had cataracts and eventually went blind after a botched eye operation 1751.
He changed direction creatively, and addressed the middle class and made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742), he never composed an Italian opera again. But wonderful works appeared.
We're focussing on three works from this late period which failed then, and are revered now.
Serse (1738) was a major departure from opera seria - and a flop. Officially opera buffa, Serse, unlike any other Handel opera, “skillfully blends comic and tragic elements, and consistently disrupts the familiar patterns of the ‘da capo’ aria that had for so long been at the heart of his stage works. Instead, he favours short tuneful arias without ‘da capo’ repeats, woven into brief recitative and ensemble sections, and counterpointed by instrumental embellishments. The comic element is introduced from the opening aria – Serse’s famous ‘Ombra mai fu’ which has become Handel’s most famous opera tune. (Here's Phillippe Jaroussky.) The familiarity of the aria might distract listeners today from the absurdity of the situation, as Serse praises the shade provided by a plane tree in the most earnest and ardent terms.” Read more.
Saul (1739) comes 'among the great, mature oratorios, in which the da capo aria became the exception and not the rule. Saul was a success at its London premiere and was revived by Handel in subsequent seasons.' Notable modern-day performances of Saul include that at Glyndebourne in 2015, which was screened during lockdown. Read more here.
A dead giant; a young, virtuous hero; a mad, envious king. Saul’s simple ingredients produce a drama of profound emotional complexity, in which Handel and his unerring librettist Charles Jennens were able to discuss the nature of leadership, class tensions, music’s healing power and the danger of charisma, as well as the intoxication of religious faith. Barrie Kosky’s vividly abstract production for Glyndebourne allows those themes to cry out to us today, his vision embracing every emotional detail of the oratorio, from its exhilarating choruses to its raw, intimate family scenes.
The voice parts in Saul are gems of baroque. David’s role offers glorious arias
for top countertenors. Listen to “Oh Lord, whose mercies numberless” from Hungarian countertenor Gábor Birta, Paul Esswood, and Andreas Scholl. But the chorus towers throughout Saul. Hear it in debate with Saul. And of course everyone who’s ever been to a state funeral knows the Dead March. It must be the most travelled of Handel’s pieces. Compare Stokowski’s orchestration with this simple presentation. It’s the funeral anthem for Saul and Jonathan
Hercules (1745 ) was originally performed as an oratorio without stage action - and flopped. "Audiences were baffled when Handel's "Hercules" was first presented in 1745 at the King's Theater in London. The work wasn't an opera, yet it didn't seem to be an oratorio either, though it was performed in concert. It failed to catch on even after Handel's death, despite being one of Handel's most complex and penetrating scores.' Read more here.
It's perhaps better titled 'Hercules' wife', as the drama and the wonderful music centre on Dejanira. Here’s Joyce DiDonato singing the mad scene from the production we will view.
Go to Wikipedia for synopsis and comment: the article reports, 'For musicologist Paul Henry Lang, the excellence of the libretto, the masterly characterisation through music, and Handel's superlative musical invention make Hercules "the crowning glory of Baroque music drama".'