George Frideric Handel: Giulio Cesare

Abstract

The phenomenal ascent in prominence and popularity of Handel's operas must surely rank among the most remarkable developments in the recent history of opera performance. Utterly abandoned even before the composer's death, Handel's operas were first revived in a series of German performances beginning in 1920. In the years to follow, the works were staged with accelerating frequency, and they are today produced regularly in opera houses large and small throughout the world. Not surprisingly, the meteoric rise of an operatic genre rife with unfamiliar conventions has triggered much debate regarding strategies for musical and dramatic production. For example, the early revivals did away with many of the most characteristic musical elements of opera seria—long ritornellos, da capo arias, high-ranged lead male roles, and so on—in an attempt to make the works more palatable to modern audiences. Such musical alterations were roundly criticized by some scholars—Winton Dean most prominent among them—as constituting a “butchering” of Handel's scores. With the rise of the early music movement, an increased understanding of the performance practices of the high Baroque, the reemergence of countertenors, and the increased availability of critical editions, this controversy seems largely to have been settled: the great majority of productions of Handel operas now attempt to perform them in a manner consistent with what is known of the musical practices of Handel's day.