This was the Christmas that Handel stole. The year my Advent candle became
“the Handel candle”, burning down the days of an epic musical challenge: to
listen to all of George Frideric Handel's 42 operas. In three weeks. Was it
humanly possible? Or would it be the nightmare before, during and after
Christmas?
Next year is the 250th anniversary of Handel's death, and to mark it Radio 3
is broadcasting an opera a week, beginning with Almira (no, I'd never heard
of it either). That's the odd thing about Handel; 42 operas written in 39
years, yet only a handful ever performed. And having listened to more than
1,300 arias I can tell you why.
I've seen three Handel operas on stage - Agrippina, Giulio Cesare and Xerxes -
so I knew that he wrote for funny-sounding, high-voiced men (the
18th-century castrati singers or today's counter tenors. If Alan Carr sang
opera he'd sound like this, probably), and that women often play men in his
operas (so-called trouser roles). I'm prepared for the hours of recitative -
the conversational bits that advance the plot - punctuated by arias, which
express the characters' emotions. Most importantly, I like Handel's operas.
At least, I did like them...
By my sixth, Il pastor fido (an early stinker from 1712), I'm beginning to
wonder if five minutes of one Handel opera isn't the same as 117 hours of
the rest. Some florid tra-la-la-ing and a whole lotta harpsichord. The
reason being that Handel composed to strict Baroque conventions: arias were
intended to show off the star singer; choruses had to appear at the end of
acts only; duets or anything else “fancy” were to be avoided unless
essential to the plot. And the reason he riffs around the same few chords
(like Oasis) is that he composed his operas for a few star Italian singers
(with Liam Gallagher-sized egos).
So Handel can be tricky if you've feasted on Verdi choruses or romantic
Puccini.
I press on. Another six operas - including Acis and Galatea, considered a good
'un but with only one star aria: Polyphemus, the giant's, O ruddier than the
cherry - and I'm dreaming to a Handel soundtrack. Waking hours are plagued
by a generic, Baroque white noise. After three hours of Floridante (sorry,
readers, but I gave up on the plot of this 1721 own-goal) I write just two
words in my swotty Handel notebook: “Baroque blancmange”. It's time to call
in the experts.
Nicholas McGegan is a conductor and Handel specialist who has recorded five of
the operas being broadcast. His advice is like sweet nectar to a parched
bee. “There's nothing wrong with the fastforward button. Because, of course,
you're doing what Handel would never have done, which is just to listen to
an opera rather that have it on stage.”
Good point. And if dragons, furies or Cleopatra her royal self had appeared in
my kitchen, listening might have been more fun. McGegan also argues that
Handel does ring the changes. Roughly you can divide his styles into four:
the heroic operas, such as Ariodante, full of real suffering and the juicy
stuff of life; the antiheroic, kitchen-sink drama operas, such as Flavio.
Then there are the ironic operas - Xerxes, for instance - rich with court
plotting: “They're heroes at Club Med,” McGegan says. And finally the magic
operas, Rinaldo and Alcina among them, based on mythology and packed with
enough dragons, smoke and spells to keep J.K. Rowling in stories for years.
“His earliest operas are the most musically extravagant but perhaps with fewer
believable characters,” explains McGegan, who thinks that Handel responded
to his London audience's fickle tastes. “He changed his style to make
characters less extravagant. Giulio Cesare is a more believable human
character than the sort of Indiana Jones Rinaldo.”
McGegan helpfully suggests that I forget the oceans of recitative and hit on
the arias, looking for interesting text. Like a sniffer dog primed for
misery, joy and hysteria, I'm alert to Handel's subtleties: changes of pace
from high tragedy to lively melodies, descending strings to show sorrow or
weakening resolve, happy flutes twittering like birds. The third act of
Rodelinda, in which the queen believes her husband is dead, leaves me in
tears with its gloomy strings and wailing vocals conveying utter loss.
Every Handel opera fan raves about his ability to humanise characters, be they
Greek gods, Roman emperors or mythological monsters. A couple of years ago I
interviewed the British mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as she was preparing to
sing Nero in Handel's Agrippina. Nero is a pig of an adolescent whom his
mum, Agrippina, plots to put on the throne. Rice said that Handel would be
her desert island choice. Why? “He has such an understanding of the human
condition, about the complexities of our desires.
“Handel is driven in his storytelling by human nature,” explains Rice, who has
also sung in Partenope and in the oratorio Theodora. “There's always an
emotional journey for the character to go on. And though he was writing
centuries ago, we can recognise the dilemmas people get themselves into.”
His heroes are certainly more compelling for not being Hollywood, solid-gold
goodies; likewise, his villains are rarely 100 per cent bad. The star of
Ottone, Handel's 1723 hit, is Gismondo, a mother from hell. Scheming to get
her son, Adelberto, on the throne, Gismondo arrives all haughty and vicious
until, in Act II, Adelberto is sentenced to death. Handel then gives her the
best tune of the piece, the shattering aria Vieni, o figlio - “Come, my son,
and comfort me”.
“That's a class act,” McGegan says, “because it pulls you towards this black
hole of a character.” As Gismondo sings of love for her son, the strings
temper below. “You get a window into her soul where you see where she's
coming from and you say: ‘Actually I can empathise with that'.”
As I push on through the late 1720s Riccardo primo, Tolomeo and Lotario (the
“O” operas, as in “Oh, God, make it stop”), it's clear that Handel thrives
on the human nitty-gritty: jealousy, bitch fights, bickering lovers,
betrayal. His operas are as soapy as EastEnders or Desperate Housewives and
he doesn't bother much with political or social comment.
Apparently this bothered Albert Einstein, who preferred Mozart and Bach for
their deterministic works, but wrote off Handel as having “a certain
shallowness”.
In his day Handel was the royal composer of choice and an unashamed populist,
who made a tidy living in the process. (His London home in Brook Street, off
Bond Street, now the Handel House Museum, boasted a cellar of 600 bottles of
wine). However, lampooned in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, Handel fell out
of favour in 1728 and, barring a final operatic flourish - Ariodante and
Alcina - he abandoned opera for a new form, the English oratorio, hitting
the bull's-eye with Messiah in 1742.
Now, 250 years later, we've gone bonkers all over again for podgy George's
operas. Giulio Cesare was the hit of Glyndebourne's 2005 season - and not
solely thanks to Danielle de Niese's shapely Cleopatra. Opera companies are
falling over themselves to rediscover the next hidden Handel gem (clue: it's
not Poro).
With the closing bars of Semele, my marathon is at an end. For all his
celebrated humanity, listening to 42 of Handel's operas back to back is
frankly inhuman. The toughest thing has been distinguishing from such a
feast of music. There are few absolute turkeys, but plenty that is average.
Yet that average is still a cut above. Handel provides hours of serene
background music, then takes your breath away with a killer aria. Ombra cara
from Radamisto jolts me out of hanging up my socks.
So, will I listen to Handel again? Undoubtedly, for his moments of sublime
musical beauty few can beat him. But for now, please excuse me while I wrap
my tired ears in some Girls Aloud.
Afternoon on 3: Handel begins on Radio 3 on January 8. Handel Reveal'd, Handel
House Museum, London W1 (www.handelhouse.org; 020-7495 1685), from April 8
THE HITS
Rinaldo, 1711. Jan 29
Dragons! Flames! Thunder! Wow! All this in a magic opera, and the aria, Lascia
ch'io pianga (the Harrods advert).
Giulio Cesare in Egitto, 1724. April 16
Hit aria after hit aria in the tale of Caesar and Cleopatra - humanity not
history.
Rodelinda, 1725. Apr 30
Minimum recitative, max arias, and absorbing characters. Major tearjerker: Se
'l mio duol non è sì forte in Act III.
Sosarme, 1732. July 16
Messiah-like trumpets and astounding vocals, and love duets don't get better
than Sosarme and Elmira's in Act II.
Ariodante, 1735. Oct 8
Polinesso is the filthy villain. Aria-tastic with extraordinary tricks.
Alcina, 1735. Oct 15
A late magic opera. Stay with it to witness Alcina (picture above shows Lisa
Milne in the role in 2003) becoming a love-sorceress in need of rehab by Act
III.
THE MISSES
Almira, 1705. Jan 8
The 19-year-old Handel couldn't save the farcical plot.
Il pastor fido, 1712. Feb 5
It's about nymphs. And there are no good arias. And Mirtillo, the counter
tenor, sings as if he's been struck with a cattle prod.
Muzio Scevola, 1721. Mar 19
My head hits the desk. Handel composed only Act III; Giovanni Bononcini
composed the others. Result: an unconvincing mess.
Poro, 1731. July 2
Sends me to sleep.
Berenice, 1737. Nov 12
A total flop. Handel's lost it (and so have I).
