Dance in Handel’s London Operas by Sarah McCleave (review)

Abstract

Dance in Handel's OperasEMBODIMENT: DANCE, AND OPERA Dance in Handel's Operas. By Sarah McCleave. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 96.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013. [xiii, 266 p. ISBN 9781580464208. $80.] Music examples, illustrations, tables, bibliography, index.In her impeccably researched book, Dance in Handel's Operas, Sarah McCleave introduces her readers to a historical world where theatrical dance was as dramatically useful as the da capo aria. Focusing on London's most prominent eighteenth-century composer, McCleave shows how and why Handel integrated different styles and genres of dances into his operas for the stage. Yet her title masks the true scope of her book: she does not limit herself to Handel, or even to opera seria. On a broader scale, her project revises the history of theatrical music in using a new, illuminating argument: that dance had a varied range of affective, dramatic, and stylistic uses and meanings, rather than simply providing decorative spectacle. In order to accomplish her ambitious project, McCleave unites musical and dramatic analysis with documentary evidence from texts, libretti, and published dance manuals. Her book is an exemplary model of how to breathe new life into operas that have been studied as a vocal repertory.McCleave's project is also a necessary step in reevaluating England as a center of cultural, national, and musical diversity in the eighteenth century. Her book's argumentative thread claims that Handel embraced different styles of dance (French, Italian, and homegrown English influences) for the purposes of connecting to and manipulating his audience's understanding of the affective and dramatic meanings behind these styles and corresponding genres. She identifies eight major influences on the different ways in which Handel incorporated and integrated dance into his operas, and she treats all of these in her book's chapters: (1) seventeenthcentury Italian libretti, (2) French tragedies en musique (Jean-Baptist Lully/Philippe Quinault), (3) English theatrical dance, (4) his training in Hamburg, (5) contemporary Italian practices, (6) the tastes of his audiences, (7) pantomimes, and (8) contemporary social dance (pp. 182- 88). Such a multitude of influences demonstrate that understanding the dramatic meaning behind Handel's dances is a complex enterprise, not only for us as modern readers, but for eighteenth-century audiences as well.Significantly, Handel was not the first, nor the last, to approach the integration of dance styles into opera in this way. Throughout the book, which is organized chronologically, McCleave makes a considerable effort to connect Handel's innovations with both his English predecessors as well as those who worked in during the first and second Royal Academies: London provides early examples of operas in which creative artists blended French and Italian operatic conventions, with a tradition leading from [Peter Anthony] Motteux through to Handel and [Marie] Salle, and from them to [Francesco] Vanneschi (p. 167). This is a great strength of her book, and especially of chapter 4. While focusing on opera seria, McCleave gives other theatrical genres similar weight, providing a thorough picture of how dance shaped the dramatic profiles of many different kinds of productions. Moreover, such an inclusive focus abolishes the age-old impression of Handel as a musical genius; instead, McCleave illustrates quite convincingly that Handel's integrative approach was as much influenced by his English surroundings and opportunities to work with certain dancers as by his prior training in Hamburg.While McCleave's general argument is one of multinational diversity of style and genre, her chapters analyzing Handel's use of dance in his operas (chapters 1 through 3) focus on how the composer used dance in order to create or dissipate dramatic tension. Handel's ability to shape exquisite dramatic depth in his vocal music has been of keen interest to many scholars, but McCleave shows how he accomplished similar feats in his dance music. …