The same exquisitely worked texture holds our attention in Ino’s song “But hark! the heavenly sphere turns round,” in which she relates her adventurous journey through forests populated with dreadful beasts. The following duet still echoes the fairy tale atmosphere; it is not a dramatic ensemble but one of those chiselled chamber duets with delicate imitation and magnificently sustained melodic writing. The concluding fugue is again an astonishing composition—a pastoral fugue!—which stands nearly alone in the choral literature. Now the chorus disappears until the end, because the dénouement concerns the dramatis personae alone.
The introduction to the third act evokes the world of the God of Sleep; the shadowy arabesques played by the bassoons and basses are wonderfully suggestive. This is a theatre piece that directly prepares the raising of the curtain. The spell is broken by Juno’s stern “Somnus awake.” The sleepy god stirs, singing a slow, trance-like song, “Leave me loathsome light,” which fairly simulates sleep. Handel’s uncanny skill in depicting the half-awake drowsiness of Somnus in a beautiful song fascinates with its combination of the real with the unreal. Juno, a good psychologist and well acquainted with the personal foibles of the corps of gods, offers the lethargic Somnus a nice little nymph, Pasithea, for his delectation. The response is remarkable. Somnus is transformed; jumping with joy he breaks into a genuine buffo aria—but one with an erotic undertone. Juno and Somnus sing a duet, not a chamber duet but a superbly operatic scene. Juno is all calm determination as she precisely repeats her demand and sets the price upon it, but Somnus only utters Pasithea’s name and is ready to carry out Juno’s wishes. So the conspiracy to punish Semele by magic gets under way.
The scene changes back to Semele, and we realize that Jove’s endeavors to keep her occupied have come to naught. “My racking thoughts by no kind slumber freed” is once more a beautifully ornate largo aria, filled with restlessness and foreboding. The operatic element is not only all-pervasive by this time, but obviously rests on traditional Italian principles entirely missing in the English semi-opera. As Juno, disguised as Ino, enters Semele’s presence, the old Venetian “bedroom scene” is before us, complete with mirror. Juno’s approach is very smooth and deceiving; she is both shrewd and contemptuous. (The asides of both women are meaningless unless the work is acted on the stage.) Upon her fulsome praise, Semele picks up the mirror and sings a suavely ravishing coloratura aria. Anticipating immortality, she becomes giddy, declaring that “no object sure before was half as pleasing” as what she beholds in the mirror. The aria is a little long and requires superlative singing and acting skill to bring it off. Juno, aware that the right moment has come, tells Semele in a crisply dramatic accompanied recitative the best—and oldest—method to bring an ardent male to terms. (Incidentally, one wonders whether “adieu” was deliberately used in this affair between gods.)
Semele, grateful for the advice, which she believes to come from her sister, sings a gently waving siciliana, and now the crisis approaches. Jove enters, with rather unseemly haste: “Come to my arms, my lovely fair.” The fine aria is built above a pseudo-ostinato bass, and Handel withholds the violins until the piece is well under way. But Semele does not respond and Jove is stunned: “Oh, Semele, why art though insensible?” Semele is now all woman, sure in instinct, and even surer in timing. “I ever granting” is a fine piece, but no longer expansive—every note counts, and the repetitions (“I always am wanting”) are indeed insistent. Jove loses all his senses but one and is ready to promise anything, which he presently does in a powerful accompanied recitative. The reaction to Semele’s demand for immortality is instantaneous: Jove forgets all else in consternation. “Ah! take heed what you press” is a rushing, impatient, and sternly warning aria; Handel dispenses with any ritornel but keeps the orchestra in an uproar. Semele does not yield: ‘No, no, I’ll take no less!” She also launches into a fast coloratura aria, skipping the customary recitative. There is something defiant and determined in this whirlwind piece in which the voice stops racing only when the word “oath” is sung on a long-held note. Yet one must regretfully agree with Winton Dean that here, for a moment, Handel’s dramatic sense failed him. At this crucial spot, where one would expect an accompanied recitative, he permits Semele to recapitulate a long aria verbatim, after which she leaves abruptly. Semele is studded with da capo arias, another sign of the return to opera, but they are either so placed that they ideally suit their purpose, or are skilfully manipulated to avoid literal repetition. Fantastic coloratura can be a very effective dramatic agent, and Handel was thoroughly adept at using it, but in such symmetrical application it is a double-edged weapon.
Jove, left alone, upholds the drama. Now we see a god in an altogether human predicament, and the frivolous Olympian becomes a grieving mortal; profoundly moved, he turns flesh and blood in the shadow of onrushing death. “Ah! whither is she gone” we may perhaps call an accompanied recitative da capo; it is an example of the remarkable new species we have encountered in Samson, which straddles recitative, arioso, and aria. Juno reappears to savor her victory, but even though her music is very good, this scene can be safely omitted. Elaborate stage directions preface Semele’s death scene, for it is a struggle to memorialize beauty in the face of death, to render the stillness of surrender to the fear of death. It is a brief piece, again in the free dramatic arioso-aria style, but, a pendant to Dido’s lament, it is one of the memorable moments in all opera. “Ah, me,” sings Semele, “too late I now repent ... I feel my life consuming,” and then the last pitiful unaccompanied words: “I can no more.” Now the chorus, absent throughout this act, returns with the epodos, which is one of Handel’s tremendous choral frescoes. Having witnessed the tragedy, they show their emotions by their halting singing of a choral arioso, “Oh horror and astonishment,” which is followed by a flowing polyphonic texture ending again in arioso. The gradual vanishing into pianissimo is carefully indicated by the composer.
Once more we feel that a work has been finished, that the “Story of Semele” really ends here, that the anguish and the tragic dénouement should not be dissipated. We are little interested in what happens to Athamas, who finally gets a spouse. Moreover, it is not without embarrassment that he accepts the consolation prize, Ino. A surprise awaits us. The customary Hallelujah Chorus, with the trumpets and timpani added, does appear, but it announces that the offspring of the idyll has been saved from the catastrophe. He is none other than Bacchus, and the chorus, knowing what he will mean to posterity, jubilates in a fine “prelude and fugue.” Indeed, this splendid fugue is “free from care, free from sorrow,” but all this good music is dramatically expendable; it weakens the somber drama with an enforced happy ending.
Semele was performed on February 10, 1744, at Covent Garden with an experienced cast headed by La Francesina, Avoglio, Esther Young (Mrs. Arne’s sister), Beard, and Reinhold. A complete failure, it was withdrawn after three performances. Handel tried it again in December, but after one more performance Semele was retired, never to be revived in Handel’s lifetime. We notice with regret that at the December revival Handel disfigured this enchanting English opera by the addition of several Italian songs. It is amazing that he should have resorted to this old and long-discredited subterfuge. Perhaps it made some sense when he tried to stiffen the sagging popularity of Israel in Egypt in this manner—it has scarcely any “songs”—but in this case there was an embarrassment of riches. Semele was composed with care, dedication, and a high sense of artistic integrity, an integrity still in evidence when Handel subsequently reworked the opera. If we throw out the Italian insertions and consider the changes made between the few performances, we shall see that Handel substantially improved the score. Since the autograph and performing material are available, a critical edition, using some of the fine unpublished material and indicating recommended omissions, would not only give us a most viable work, but would elevate Semele to its rightful place: that of the first great full-length English opera.
Th
ere was, however, a certain reason for the desperate expedient of spicing the work with Italian songs: Handel was facing an opera war reminiscent of the old campaigns. Semele is an opera, and it was so recognized by the opposition. The opera party and Lord Middlesex were not fooled, bitterly resenting that Handel should produce opera without incurring the expenses of scenery and costly Italian singers. In spite of the failure of Messiah and Semele, Handel’s subscription concerts were on the whole successful, and he siphoned away from Middlesex’s opera house a good portion of the public. In one of her letters Mrs. Delany says “the houses have not been crowded, but pretty full every night,” and Handel once more became a regular depositor at the Bank of England. Even Horace Walpole remarked that “Handel has set up an Oratorio against the Operas and succeeds.”
The opposition was really ruthless. Verbal insults being no longer sufficient to stop Handel, they resorted to the crassest measures: hired ruffians made attendance at Handel’s productions hazardous as people were set upon, beaten, and robbed. The scandalous situation was eased only upon the King’s attendance at the theatre, when known troublemakers and members of the underworld were arrested; after the royal visit the disturbances resumed. In fact, the disorderly acts were so constant that their occasional absence was an event worth mentioning. Mrs. Delany, writing about a performance of Semele, remarks “there was no disturbance at the play-house.” The war was not restricted to the low level of physical brawls; it was just as vigorously prosecuted in aristocratic salons. Burney mentions a Lady Brown as “a persevering enemy of Handel” who helped Middlesex’s cause. This must be the same person to whom Mainwaring refers as “a certain fashionable lady who exerted all her influence to spirit up a new opposition against him.” The wife of Sir Robert Brown, merchant and diplomat, Lady Margaret organized lavish concerts for the aristocracy, favoring, according to Burney, musicians “of the new Italian style.”
It was not only the opera party, however, that was up in arms. When seeking the Lord Chamberlain’s permission for the production, Handel had described Semele as a work “after the manner of an oratorio.” This was supposed to placate that august official as well as the clergy, but in this instance he also had to reckon with the hurt moral sense of the great and virtuous public. They saw through the deception. Why, even Tristan’s love potion is foreshadowed as the jealous Juno bribes the God of Sleep to excite Jove’s already quite virile desires by an aphrodisiac dream. And they saw illicit love, a perfectly decent marriage project ruined by lechery. It is true whoever arranged the libretto for Handel took pains to eliminate Congreve’s less felicitous and more “suggestive” language. To quote an example, in the original text Congreve has Jove propose rather impatiently
Say what you require
I’ll grant it—now let us retire.
The final phrase was omitted. But all such lines could not be eliminated without seriously hurting the play, and such passages as
On her bosom Jove reclining
Useless now his thunder lies
created considerable uneasiness. The Victorians were even more scandalized by Jove’s extra-marital adventures and by Semele’s uninhibited passion, and the moral censors used their blue pencils with a vengeance. At the turn of the century Semele was still found to be unworthy of the composer of Messiah. Ebenezer Prout, who edited a vocal score for Novello, forever disgraced himself by his high-handed and altogether irresponsible mutilation of Semele. It is incredible that a modern musician should find a word such as “desire” morally objectionable. As to the removal of “bed,” one wonders whether the Victorians even used that piece of furniture for resting. What Prout did to the music is even worse. Chrysander himself, as we have said, is curiously equivocal; he was not interested in this radiant score. But his dilemma was of his own making: by calling Semele an oratorio, he came into conflict with his idea of religious music.
[3]
THE NEXT new oratorio, Joseph and his Brethren, presented on March 2, 1744, at Covent Garden, affords one of the saddest examples of how a poor libretto can completely hobble the creative powers of a genius. Joseph is a frightful concoction of the worst sanctimonious trash ever wished on a composer. The story is lacking not only in continuity and coherence but even in the most elementary meaning. If plot and construction are wretched and senseless, the “poetry” is even more so. Handel was not moved by Asenath, the heroine, and when such a thing happens a work is doomed. He himself got tired of it; for the final chorus, he simply inserted the Dettingen Te Deum. It was not because of clerical limitations that the author, the Reverend James Miller, failed in his task, for the good pastor was a confirmed friend of the theatre and a playwright to boot. He was simply unfit to wield a pen. Even though Joseph and his Brethren contains a few very fine numbers, notably some great choral pieces, we must regard it as a complete failure. But though far from popular success, the work was sufficiently well received to encourage Handel to offer several subsequent revivals, the last taking place two years before his death, when he was already blind. But it never eked out more than two or three successive performances.
The subscription series ended on March 21 with Saul. Rumors once more predicted Handel’s impending artistic demise, but instead it was Middlesex’s opera company that expired in June. The noble lord’s intrigues against Handel had proved of no avail, and for a while Middlesex even found it necessary to leave London for Paris, where of course he “lived a dissolute life”—at least Flower so reports. But Handel, far from being eclipsed, immediately exploited the situation. On June 9 the old warrior informed Jennens that he had leased the Haymarket Theatre vacated by Middlesex, engaging a company consisting of Francesina, Miss Robinson, Beard, Reinhold, “Mr. Gates with his Boye’s and several of the best Chorus singers from the Choirs,” and expressed the hope that Susanna Cibber would join the ensemble. Eager to proceed, he asked Jennens for the first act “of the new Oratorio [Belshazzar] with which you intend to favor me.” After this we lose track of Handel for about a month—perhaps he went to Tunbridge Wells—but by July 19, the man who was supposed to fade from the scene was so impatient that he began the composition of Hercules even as the first act of Belshazzar arrived from Gopsall. By the time Hercules was finished, towards the end of August, the second act of Belshazzar was at hand, and without waiting for the rest, Handel immediately began setting the new oratorio. Two tremendous masterpieces composed in two months! On October 20 a subscription series for twenty-four evenings was announced, which duly began in November with Deborah. Then, on January 5, 1745, Hercules, “A new Musical Drama,” was first performed at the fifth subscription concert.
XVI
1744-1745
Hercules (1745)—Broughton’s libretto—The music—Failure leads to cancellation of concert series—Public rallies and Handel resumes performances—Belshazzar (1745)—Jennens’s libretto—The music—Failure again forces suspension of concerts—Handel vacates Haymarket Theatre—Suffers another physical collapse
HOW HANDEL HAPPENED ON THE REVEREND THOMAS Broughton and who was responsible for the subject of Hercules is not known. But Broughton managed to prepare a libretto that supplied all the stimulus needed by Handel’s responsive imagination for the creation of the crowning glory of Baroque music drama, the near-perfect confluence of observation, expression, passion, and music. The Reverend Dr. Broughton was another clergyman dabbling in letters, but while a creative nonentity, like the Reverend James Miller, he was a man of learning and of much more experience than the author of Joseph and his Brethren. His preoccupation with the classics and with English letters gave him a good idea of the nature of the theatre and of the expressiveness of well-chosen words. As we read his book, derived from a combination of Sophocles’s Women of Trachis and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (IX), it becomes clear why this divine could accomplish what his hapless colleague could not. Hercules is a drama, not a potpourri; it has construction and continuity, the first essential conditions for a dramatic composer; it has motivation, providing pl
ausible figures that a dramatic composer can endow with life; and, finally, though its author was not a poet, he had a good memory combined with a partiality for the great English poets, and his text is liberally strewn with fine echoes. This favored another important element in the Handelian canon, for the imagery of words was a powerful stimulant to the composer.
Broughton showed good theatrical sense in arranging the old legend. He tightened the conflict by peeling off almost everything extraneous to the drama of jealousy, which made for sharpness of image, for unblurred edges. In Sophocles’s play, Hercules does commit adultery with the captive princess, Iole; by making both innocent, the tragic passion of Dejanira is enhanced. But perhaps most important was the change that made possible a confrontation of husband and wife; in the original play Dejanira’s husband never reaches Trachis. In this rearrangement of a rather complicated play, Broughton was aided by Ovid, but his own additions are numerous and on the whole sound and useful.
George Frideric Handel_Dover Books on Music Page 57