What makes a Handel opera?
Post categories: Suzanne Aspden
| 16:45 UK time, Monday, 12 January 2009
Why did Handel write so many operas? Was he intrinsically drawn to the theatre? These were two of the questions I knew I would have to answer last Thursday, for the interview that preceded the first of Radio 3's 'complete Handel operas' series (the work broadcast was Almira). I was delighted to be asked to kick off the series, but did wonder how I could possibly answer some of the questions in the few minutes we had available. The two above are particular posers, in quite different ways.
The first one: 'why did he write so many operas?' needs a book-length answer to do it justice. You could answer by reference to general compositional practice for opera composers of the period: assembling an opera could be a bit of a production line, especially if singers wanted to import their favourite numbers from other shows.
On the other hand, you could answer by referring to Handel's own compositional practice, which included a lot of borrowing of ideas (from himself and from others) - Almira is a great case in point, as he both borrowed from others (especially Reinhard Keiser), and then in turn took the manuscript with him on his travels and re-used material from Almira in his later operas. You could also refer to the context in which he wrote, particularly in London, where he was paid to turn out several operas a year during the 1720s, and then ran his own opera seasons in the 1730s. And then there's the aesthetic context... I could go on, but you get the picture.
The second question is tricky because it's fundamentally about Handel's intention, and though we have lots of lovely music, and lots of juicy anecdotes (more or less reliable, these), we have very little comment from the man himself. Usually, that means we infer his intentions from the music itself (an enjoyable exercise, but potentially also problematic). In this instance, of course, the consensus is that: yes, he was really good at "getting inside" his characters and expressing their emotions musically...
In any case, you can see that there's much to pick over in terms of the background to Handel's operas, and I'm greatly looking forward to hearing what other people have to say - I gather from the producers that they have a long list of different directors, singers, and academics to introduce each of the operas. Of course, we're just the warm-up act for the music! Next week should be particularly good: the Alan Curtis recording of Vincer se stesso è la maggior vittoria, ovvero Rodrigo (Rodrigo for short!) has some really sublime singing, particularly from Sandrine Piau. The title, by the way, indicates the moralising principle behind most opere serie: it translates as 'vanquishing oneself is the greatest victory'. You can imagine the kind of things Rodrigo gets up to in order to deserve that admonishment!
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