Hallelujah, it's Handel!
- Lyn Richards
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
As the Baroque era shifted in Europe, the excitement moved back to Britain. Purcell (1659-1695) had provided the early Baroque music and recitative. Now German-born Handel (1685 – 1759) brought to England the European opera seria. He even had it sung in Italian - and to huge success.
Click here for my introduction to Handel as our course toured English opera's odd history in 2022, and follow the links in that introduction to find out more about his life and work. Seriously prolific, and hugely popular, he provided over 50 operas and oratorios in three decades. The operas came first - Handel turned to oratorio when Italian opera style lost support in London. Here's the official list of Handel operas and oratorios, (and here's the difference). Bachtrack published a lighthearted introduction to his best operas this year. It's here on their website.
Many of the operas are still unknown to most audiences today, and most have had revival only recently. Some of the oratorios are performed now as operas (notably Semele, which we'll watch later in the term, and Saul, which had a huge success in the production by Barrie Kosky we watched in 2022.) You've probably heard of only a few.
But you will know many of the songs. One of the glories of Handel's operas is his genius for a beautiful melody. Every one of the operas has many superb arias, and all have at least one that has become a loved and often heard performance piece.
Serse? that's the one about the king who loves a plane tree. The famous song is ‘Ombra mai fu’, sometimes called the Largo di Handel . Here's Andreas Scholl.
Semele? 'Where'er you walk', not as usually portrayed a simple love song, but in the opera, the song of the god Jupiter as he cons Semele into his lair. Here's John Mark Ainsley in 1997 Semele at ENO.
We're now giving Handel's works a full term, wrapping up our exploration of Baroque opera. We'll focus on different pieces and productions from across those three amazing decades of Handel's operas and oratorios. We start in 1711, when the English audiences met opera seria written for London.
Rinaldo
And this week, what is the song you'll know forever? The act 2 aria in Rinaldo, "Lascia ch'io pianga" ("Let me weep"). Our heroine, Almirena sings it to her abductor Argante. Like so many of these songs, it's a simple, delicate tune, varied thrillingly and warmed by quiet orchestration of period instruments. Here's Joyce DiDonato, in concert. And here she uses it in a performance for peace.
It's not Handel's first opera, but the first he composed for London, and the first Italian opera by any composer written for the English audience. The Wiki introduction to the opera gives a spirited account of how Handel came through German and Italian influence to settle in London and produce this opera. He produced it fast, too - and much of the music was recycled from earlier works - including "Lascia ch'io pianga"! (Wiki notes that "the amount of recycled music in Rinaldo is such that Dean and Knapp call it an "anthology" of the best works from Handel's Italian period.")
Like most Handel operas, it has a complex plot involving heroism and conflict, love and betrayal, drama and pathos; lots of action and visual spectacle and complicatedly evil magic, particularly by witches or sorceresses, apparently very popular with English audiences. (Handel's women, especially his powerful women, make an interesting discussion.) Rinaldo is a knight in the Crusades, at the siege of Jerusalem, negotiating winning Almirena with his commander, her father. Argante, her abductor, is the leader of the opposing army, who of course falls in love with her, which will enrage his lover Armida, a powerful sorceress and Saracen Queen. But (apparently required by the English audience) it has a highly improbable happy ending in which the Crusaders win victory and everyone, (even the sorceress!) is reconciled.
Pinchgut opera summarized the story for their 2024 production: "In this magical tale of chivalry and cunning, the knight Rinaldo battles the scheming sorceress Armida to rescue his beloved Almirena. The battle ends in a moment of forgiveness and sacrifice and laying down of arms. The quest that each side has reveals that pure victory is hollow and the virtue of love and constancy is the thing that wins the day."
Our Production
Given the complex plots and often heavy messages of Handel's operas, they have been increasingly given modern and/or absurd settings. the directors are greatly helped by the strength of the glorious music, and this production is a good example of the adaptability of these pieces. We'll see more such, this term!
For Rinaldo, we're watching a very cheeky production by Robert Carson for Glyndebourne - first performed in 2011 and repeated several times since. Here's Bachtrack's enthusiastic summary.
"Our hero is a schoolboy, bullied and humiliated by his classmates. During a history exam on the motivation for the Crusades, Rinaldo shuffles to the teacher’s desk to sharpen his pencil – a classic avoidance tactic – and slips into a reverie where he is a brave knight leading the Christians. His brutal teachers become the Saracen King of Jerusalem, Argante, and the Queen of Damascus, the sorceress Armida. Her furies are a rebellious gang of teenage girls straight from St Trinian’s, flashing lacrosse sticks and scimitars with equal aplomb."
The cast is impressive - full details here, and singing praised in most reviews. Opera Today points particularly to Luca Pisaroni, playing Ardante - here's his discussion of the role.
It's unlikely Handel intended such comedy, but the music is untouched and somehow fits. Bachtrack concludes, "A melting pot of politics, religion and love, should Rinaldo be presented as a vehicle for comedy? ... Carsen’s take on the Crusades shouldn’t be missed. If only all history lessons were such fun! "
Perhaps like history, opera should not be played mainly for laughs? Guardian's reviewer was of this mind. And in this very careful review, Opera Today argues against it.
But as this reviewer puts it, "God it’s good to laugh in an opera house. Not a hear-how-clever-I-am-to-get-the-laborious-operatic-joke laugh, or an I-realise-this-is-supposed-to-be-funny-so-I’m-playing-along one, but a real, spontaneous laugh that tickles into sound before you’ve even had time to register its approach. Back for its second appearance, Robert Carsen’s Glyndebourne Rinaldo is ingenious and witty, joyous and completely over-the-top, and the best possible ending to this year’s summer opera season."
Let it be the best possible start to our term on Handel's glorious operas.
And the music rules. Handel operas are never one-hit offerings. You can assess all the musical highlights in Glyndebourne's website recordings from the production we'll view.
Full opera on YouTube?
There's another highly original - and very different - production, available on YouTube here.
Direction and scenography are by Claire Dancoisne, for opera de Rennes, with puppets and machines, gorgeous scenery and yes, amazingly with English surtitles. OperaBase comments:
" With birds, dragons, lightning and thunderbolts, this spectacular work demonstrates the dramatic mastery of the composer on a dreamlike and powerful score. This is a great "machine" opera that the musical director Bertrand Cuiller and the director Claire Dancoisne seize with their twenty-seven performers."
Lyn, 6/5/25
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