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Don Basilio
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« on: 21:13:18, 10-05-2007 » |
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Yes, I know they're not strictly speaking operas, but if we forget Messiah and Israel in Egypt they are operas for radio, before the wireless was invented. If you follow them for dramatic development, they are like watching paint dry, particularly in Part 1, but the exposition can be pretty long drawn out in a number of standard operas. Mr H's operas are not that snappy, in truth.
Just recently I have suddenly become very taken with them again, and want to get to know those I don't yet know (Saul, Hercules and Belshazzar are the ones I have my eye on.)
Any comments??
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« Last Edit: 16:55:07, 11-05-2007 by Don Basilio »
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #1 on: 21:29:09, 10-05-2007 » |
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Of the ones you mention Hercules and Belshazzar are eminently stageable really. Even in comparison with some of Handel's actual operas... They have some fantastic drama in them, including obviously the writing on the wall scene in Belshazzar and Dejanira's mad scene in Hercules. The role of the chorus is also more highly developed than in his operas proper: the chorus have some wonderful things to do in Jephtha and Theodora as well as those two. (The chorus 'how dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees' from Jephtha is the music Handel was working on as he went blind, I believe - and it ends with the words 'whatever is, is right'. That can't have been a lot of fun for him to set.) Whatever you do, get this:  Assuming you don't have a pathological allergy to updated productions I don't think you'll find a more gripping or better sung video of a Baroque stage work. And the production set in the modern USA fits like a glove: the word 'President' even comes from the original! |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #2 on: 01:18:23, 11-05-2007 » |
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If you're looking for a scrummy recording of HERCULES, you will have to go a longish way to beat the stupendous performance on Archiv from Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre. The vocal line-up is strong - Anne Sofie von Otter, Gidon Saks, Richard Croft, Lynne Dawson, and - it wouldn't be a show without Punch - David Daniels.
Minkowski jettisons all that grim choral-society earnest worthiness in favour of a sparkling and dramatic presentation of the piece, and stylistically it's first-rate. Testosterone oozes from the whole thing, and it's a super example of how you can have an HIP performance that hasn't been castrated by the "keep Early Music effete and emotionless" mob.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #3 on: 11:59:41, 11-05-2007 » |
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Thanks, ollie and reiner, for the suggestions.
I have recently acquired Susanna and Jehptha and I want to get to know them, before branching out further.
The "Whatever is, is right" tag was from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man and is frequently cited as an example of the complacency of Enlightenment thought (the best of all possible worlds.) In Handel it becomes powerfully tragic.
The basic situation of Jeptha (father sacrificing child) crops up in Idomeneo and Gluck's Iphigenias, (as well as Britten's Abraham and Issac, presumably). Any musical connections?
I don't have a DVD player or TV!! And therefore unable to enjoy the Glyndebourne Theodora. I have it on disk with Paul McCreesh. McCreesh did a concert of Purcell's Fairy Queen at the Barbican, and Paul M was flogging his goods afterwards. I bought Theodora then, and the great man autographed the insert booklet. I think he implied he thought the Fairy Queen a whole lot more fun.
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #4 on: 13:24:00, 11-05-2007 » |
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HIP ? Historic Instrumental Performance?  |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #5 on: 13:58:47, 11-05-2007 » |
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HIP = I think the usual one is "Historically Informed Performance" (a bit more modest than the previously-used "authentic") But "Harpsichord Intead-of Piano", "Handel Impeccably Played", "Hopeless, Insipid Playing", or "Heartburn, Indigestion & Phlegm" might all be possible, depending on who's being discussed  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #6 on: 21:21:26, 11-05-2007 » |
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Minkowski jettisons all that grim choral-society earnest worthiness in favour of a sparkling and dramatic presentation of the piece, and stylistically it's first-rate. Testosterone oozes from the whole thing, and it's a super example of how you can have an HIP performance that hasn't been castrated by the "keep Early Music effete and emotionless" mob.
Errrr - I wonder what a performance would be like that oozed oestrogen? The opposite of emotionlessness is not an injection of testosterone. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #7 on: 21:45:15, 11-05-2007 » |
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In any case I think there's room for the view that testosterone gets a comeuppance of sorts in Hercules...  |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #8 on: 21:46:02, 11-05-2007 » |
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The point being that Hercules is an archetype of masculinity, and his name has entered the language in terms such as "herculean" etc ;-) Lots of operas ooze oestrogen - Cherubini's MEDEA, for example. I'm not quite sure I see the relevance of the pic, Julie? Is it some extreme production concept for staging Hercules? Obviously you've got NOTHING to say about Hercules, Julie. At all. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #9 on: 21:55:39, 11-05-2007 » |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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martle
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« Reply #10 on: 22:10:15, 11-05-2007 » |
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Julie, what a well-considered, well-mannered and erudite response! Glad to have you around!  |
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Green. Always green.
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martle
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« Reply #11 on: 22:15:57, 11-05-2007 » |
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Oooh, she's gone!
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Green. Always green.
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #12 on: 22:27:53, 11-05-2007 » |
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I guess we shall never find out all the interesting things "she" had to say about staging Handel's oratorios as "operas"...
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #13 on: 22:44:34, 11-05-2007 » |
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Gone! She's gone as suddenly as she came -
The traveller from beyond the Alps.
Should I go too beyond the mountains?
Should I let impulse be my guide?
Should I give up the fruitless struggle with the word?
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martle
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« Reply #14 on: 22:51:51, 11-05-2007 » |
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 Now, she's gone. |
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Green. Always green.
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