Handel's Operas, 1726–1741 (review)

It is a great boon at long last to have the completing volume to Handel's Operas, 1704–1726, which Winton Dean published with Merrill Knapp in 1987. Those who are frequently concerned with Handel's operas have long awaited it, and they will not be disappointed, for the second volume, though produced with a different publisher, has held to the same principled thought and organization as the first. Occasionally one encounters a bright new feature, clearly the result of two decades' thought: listing the operas in order on the inside flap of the dust jacket is a genial stroke of favor to casual readers.

The present work picks up with the operas written for what Dean calls "the rival queens," namely Faustina Bordoni, newly arrived in London in 1726, and Francesca Cuzzoni, Handel's leading soprano in the several previous seasons of his Royal Academy. Dean advises readers of the second volume to absorb the first two chapters of the first one, "Handel as Opera Composer" and "Performance Practice," to obtain the necessary background that will make the newer work more comprehensible. Some might also wish to read his excellent chapter on the Royal Academy prior to the period covered by the new volume. Dean is nowhere more interesting than in these historical chapters, making the sorts of connections that only someone with his voluminous knowledge of the "caro Sassone" can do.

The second volume is punctuated by several more generally informative chapters as well: on the so-called Second Academy, on Covent Garden in the mid-1730s, and on Handel's final four operas in the late 1730s (Faramondo, Serse, Imeneo, and Deidamia). This latter period is not one we associate with Handel's great operas, and indeed none of the four works achieved a success at the time. It was a period in which the composer was becoming increasingly involved in presenting oratorios and mostly pleasing audiences with these. In a footnote to this chapter, Dean relates the delightful tale of Margaret Cecil, Lady Brown, an enthusiast for Italian opera and supporter of theater producer John Heidegger; several years after she gave support to Handel's final Italian opera projects, she formed an opposition to the composer's oratorio career (394).

It is ironic that Serse has proved to be a great success in our time, given its initial run in 1738 of only five performances, after which, as Dean puts it, "Serse slept for 186 years" (443). The greater regard for this work today probably has to do with its humorous character and Handel's customarily apt musical response. Dean offers a thorough discussion of the work's origins from a libretto created by Silvio Stampiglia for Giovanni Bononcini, which was itself based on Nicolò Minato's libretto for Cavalli forty years before. He calls Handel's version "a masterpiece" (420), while allowing for its several dramatic idiocies: "No doubt audiences of Cavalli's day were not interested in consistency of characterisation. Nor perhaps were many in Handel's" (421). Handel shortened Stampiglia's book, possibly on his own. Though Handel had performed similar surgeries on librettos by Metastasio, with Serse he significantly changed the opera seria form. In the process he dropped a character, causing several nonsensical situations as a result. He also transferred the final aria from Xerxes to Romilda, altering the trajectory of the title character, who has behaved throughout like a childish lunatic. Dean refers to him, appropriately, as "a royal ass" (427), seeing this as a dramatic gain. While Dean does not mention the possible connection, it is useful to remember that Handel's leading actor was the castrato Caffarelli, an acknowledged ass and grand divo among primi uomini himself. Handel may very well have been taking advantage of his leading castrato's innate qualities to create a better drama.

The book does not go into detailed discussion of the myriad ways in which Handel's singers most certainly determined both the shape and the success of his operas. Regarding Xerxes, Dean...