Handel's Operas Research Articles

Handel's Water Music on period instruments

The Handel tercentenary has brought a predictable flood of recordings of the Water Music, no fewer than three new versions played on authentic instruments having been recorded in readiness during 1983. But the earliest of the seven versions under review appeared as long ago as 1972, and I well remember one respected critic noting at that time that the use of original instruments constituted 'an implied threat... I listened with trepidation' (unfounded, as it turned out). That few nowadays would harbour any such sentiments, and fewer still admit to doing so, is one measure of how far the proponents of 'authentic' performance have succeeded, not merely in rediscovering old techniques and performance practices, but also in fostering among listeners a wide acceptance of styles and sounds that were quite unfamiliar only a dozen years ago. The ultima Thule of authentic performance has, happily, yet to be explored. As Peter Williams, slightly tongue-in-cheek, has pointed out, in a Handel opera the audience chatted all the way through, and Mozart's players may not have rehearsed: he added, more seriously, that it is anomalous to collect old instruments and assemble the right kind of choir to perform Monteverdi's Vespers, only to give the work as a secular concert in the Albert Hall instead of liturgically in a suitably reverberant church. Pursuing this line of thought, a wholly authentic performance of the Water Music is something most of us would devoutly wish to avoid--involving, as it would, an erratically mobile venue formed of vessels notoriously clumsy and unmanageable in build wallowing on one of the world's trickiest tideways. Whimsy apart, however, the Water Music, with its colourful if imperfectly documented origins, does prompt certain questions about the proper limits of concern with authenticity in recorded performances. Stylish playing on instruments of suitabl construction being (one hopes) a sine qua non, four other aspects require consideration. The first is the size of the forces to be employed. We know that at the 1717 water party Handel had 50 players for the outdoor music: a large band, in which woodwind and possibly horns must have been doubled, producing an unusually rich and powerful tutti. Modern 'authentic' performances obviously need not replicate the exact forces any more than the alfresco acoustic in which they played, but they must certainly sound robust enough to be convincing as outdoor music, at least in the F major and D major suites; the more quietly scored G major suite, on the other hand, can well be played by a smaller body of strings, reflecting its likely origin as music to accompany King George's supper at Chelsea. Linked to this question is the subsidiary one of continuo instrumentation. Since Handel can scarcely have had a harpsichord on the barge, some devotees of authenticity argue that the continuo in the outdoor music should be supplied by theorbos-or even, in view of the fullness of sonority in these numbers, omitted altogether. This seems to me an extreme position. A performance surely need not, in order to claim authenticity, set out to reflect every special circumstance of the premiere; and since most of the many subsequent performances of the Water Music in Handel's lifetime must have been indoors, there is as much historical justification for using harpsichord or even organ as there is for using theorbos. Nor are my withers too much wrung by the question of whether or not to add kettledrums to the orchestra in the D major suite, even though there is no positive evidence, documentary or internal, that Handel himself used them there; but exactly where and how best to deploy them if they are included is perhaps more debatable. A third feature of the work which must be considered

Handel's Opera Finances in 1732-3

Handel's Opera Finances in 1732-3

Handel's Operas

This first of the classic two-volume survey of Handel's operas was first published in 1987 and reissued in a revised paperback edition in 1995. Now it is brought back into print in a year which has seen numerous productions and recordings of the operas and which marks the 250th anniversary of Handel's death. Their revival in the modern theatre - not a single opera was staged or performed anywhere between 1754 and 1920 - has been among the most remarkable phenomena in the history of the art, and is due in no small measure to the painstaking research of Dean and Knapp in volume one, and Dean himself in volume two, published by Boydell in 2006. This first volume devotes a chapter to each of Handel's first seventeen operas, offering a full synopsis and study of the libretto, extensive discussions of the music, a performance history, and a comparison of the different versions of the opera. In addition there are several general chapters on the historical and stylistic context of Handel's operatic career to 1726, and a number of Appendices including a list of performances during Handel's life and the location of librettos, Handel's borrowings, Handel's singers, and modern stage productions up to the end of 1993. WINTON DEAN is a distinguished Handelian scholar and writer on opera. He is a former vice-president of the Georg-Friedrich-Handel Gesellschaft in Halle and a founding Council Member of the Handel Institute in London. JOHN MERRILL KNAPP died in 1993. He was Emeritus Professor of Music, Princeton University and the editor of two volumes of the German edition of Handel's complete works, and author of The Joy of Opera.

Henry Fielding and the Ballad Opera

BALLAD OPERA has the distinction of being one of the few literary forms destroyed by a political decision. It began its short vigorous life in 1728 with its most famous representative, Gay's Beggar's Opera. Nine years and nearly one hundred ballad operas later, its life was virtually over. Walpole's Licensing Act may have been aimed at Fielding's satura, his satiric reviews, but it also managed to destroy the ballad opera. Only one new ballad opera was produced in 1738 and only three new ones in 1739. There had been eight printed or produced in 1735 and twenty-three in 1733. Ballad operas did continue to be written, sporadically, into the 1750s, but they were literary afterthoughts. Its demise in 1737 and the burst of production in 1733, the year of the Excise Tax controversy, indicate something about the nature of the ballad opera. Gay had fashioned a perfect dramatic form for satire, and it had never lost this character. Conceiving ballad opera as a low-life parody of sentimental love, a Newgate pastoral, Gay had added burlesque of Handel's Italian opera (the tortuous distortion of a word, the duet quarrel, the metaphor aria), and he had also added topical political satire (the attack on Walpole as a highwayman and as a lover unfaithful to both his wife and his mistress, Maria Skerrett). Although there were farce intrigue ballad operas, on the pattern of Restoration comedy, and pastoral ballad operas, on the pattern of court masques and English operas of the Restoration, the form was dominated by satire and burlesque, much of it political.' While only three of the nine ballad operas written by Fielding between 1730 and 1742 can be construed as sustained political satires (The Welsh Opera, later called The Grub-Street Opera, 1731; Don Quixote in England, 1734; Tumble-Down Dick, 1736),2 most of the rest are

THE HANDEL PORTRAIT AT ST. GILES

;'UNLEss the Houbraken was an original portrait, the work on which it was based was certainly not the Kyte painting in the National Portrait Gallery, but work still awaiting discovery. So writes William C. Smith in his book 'Concerning Handel' (p. I 32) . In I 738 Walsh published an edition of 'Alexander's Feast' to which IX4 persons subscribed. A portrait of the composer engraved by Houbraken of Amsterdam was presented to each of the subscribers, and in the natural course of events three of these portraits would have found their way into the home of the Shaftesbury family, as Lord Shaftsbury, his wife and mother all subscribed to this work. The engraving is thought to have been done in I737 (the year of Handel's illness) from portrait which has never been traced. Houbraken's engraving has been frequently linked with small oil painting of Handel done by Francis Kyte in I74X, in spite of the fact that in Houbraken's work Handel looks to the right and in Kyte's he looks to the left. Mr. Smith has proved, however, that the dates of the respective works make it impossible for Houbraken to have made his engraving from Kyte's portrait. In April I734 Anthony Ashley-Cooper, fourth Earl of Shaftesbury, was already a profess'd friend of Handel, and by this means was able to gain admittance to party given by Mrs. Pendarves to which the composer was also invited. He was then 24 years old. How long was it before Handel actually became visitor to St. Giles House ? InJune I 736 he wrote to Shaftesbury thanking him for book on music written by the third Earl, and from I737 onwards Shaftesbury and his relatives regularly subscribed to Handel's operas. By December I74I Handel knew the family so well that he could write from Dublin to Jennens: One request I must make to you, which is that You would insinuate my most devoted respects to My Lord and Lady Shaftesbury, You know how much Their kind Protection is precious to me. This friendship was to last twenty-five years until Handel's death in I759, although Lady Shaftesbury died in I758. That Handel did in fact visit St. Giles, I was able to prove conclusively in my article in Music &? Letters, -X1ii (I96I), PP. I 27-3I . In the centre of St. Giles House is panelled hall on the wall of which hangs pastel portrait of Handel measuring 8W x 7 ins. On the back,

Handel as a Man of the Theatre

‘'TIS Vexatious to have such music neglected.’ Mrs. Pendarves was writing to her sister, Ann Granville. That same evening she was to attend a revival of Handel's Sosarme at the Hay-market Theatre, and she feared another empty house. She was right.Since that day in 1734, many musicians and musical historians have echoed Mrs. Pen's vexation over the neglect of Handel's operas. Most of them have agreed with her about the excellence of the music; but few have said that its neglect was undeserved. For all his great gifts, we read, the master was working under impossible conditions.

Neglected treasures in Handel's operas

Neglected treasures in Handel's operas

Annals of Covent Garden Theatre, from 1732 to 1897

Commissioned by the enterprising actor-manager John Rich, Covent Garden's Theatre Royal first opened its doors in December 1732. Principally a playhouse during its first century, the venue has had an eventful history involving two disastrous fires and riots over ticket prices. Most notably, it hosted Handel's incomparable operas and oratorios, and was where he presented regular seasons from 1735 until his death in 1759. Not until 1847, under Michael Costa, did the theatre dedicate itself to opera, and in 1892 it received the name by which it is known today: the Royal Opera House. Secretary of the Guildhall School of Music from 1901 to 1935, Henry Saxe Wyndham (1867–1940) published this richly illustrated two-volume account in 1906, celebrating the venue's legendary personalities and productions. Volume 1 covers the period 1732 to 1819 and includes discussion of John Rich, John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons, and Handel's operas.