The occasion for the Oxford festivities was the “Publick Act,” the conferring of the degrees, and though the invitation extended to Handel seems natural and proper—Haydn was so honored later in the century—it also had political undertones. The university harbored many Jacobites who, realizing that the Hanoverian dynasty was secure, decided that something had to be done to allay the rumors that the university was a hotbed of conspiracy, remove the political taint, and make peace with the court. The Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Holmes, himself a loyal subject, saw in Handel what the King’s enemies saw in him, a person close to the monarch, and conceived the idea of inviting him to Oxford with his opera company, to present his music during the solemn convocations, public disputations, and orations attendant on the conferring of the degrees. Handel himself was to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa. The new Sheldonian Theatre, a capacious house, was eminently suitable for a stagione and Handel immediately accepted.
While Handel’s success at Oxford was undisputed, he did not escape censure; xenophobia was strong as was the puritanic strain among the doctors of divinity. Dr. Thomas Hearne, the learned and irascible librarian of the Bodleian, an unregenerate Jacobite and staunch enemy of foreigners, indignantly took the Vice-Chancellor to task for permitting “one Handel, a forreigner ... and his lowsy Crew of forreign Fiddlers” to perform. Others resented the fact that there was music making instead of “Musick Speech,” i.e. a learned lecture on music, which is the proper offering at a convocation of learned men. In addition, there was great indignation at the admission prices, high for the provinces, though lower than in London. Arrived at Oxford on July 4, Handel threw himself into the venture with his old vigor. The schedule was rather severe: a performance in the morning and another one in the evening. Acis and Galatea and Esther, and a new oratorio, Athalia, expressly composed for Oxford and possibly intended as the doctoral offering, were presented, literally day and night. The success was tremendous, the newspapers speaking of audiences approaching 4,000, and Handel returned to London with his pockets lined.
One puzzling episode of the Oxford trip was Handel’s refusal of the proffered doctoral degree. Most biographers believe that Handel was deterred by a fee of £100 asked for the degree, which is possible. Yet it is hardly believable that such a large fee would have been exacted for an honorary degree, especially in view of Dr. Holmes’s avowed purpose, though some hard-bitten Jacobite may have gone over the Vice-Chancellor’s head. Others, among them the Abbé Prévost, then an interested eyewitness in England, attributed Handel’s refusal to modesty, which does not seem quite in character. It must be added, however, that later, in 1741 in Dublin, when he was billed as Dr. Handel, the composer publicly denied that he possessed such a degree. There is more here than meets the eye: Handel was indifferent to any recognition other than artistic, and he was not a “joiner,” conspicuously staying away from any but charitable organizations. Though most of his friends and colleagues—even the Catholic Geminiani—were Freemasons, Handel refused to join them.
The warm acceptance of pastoral and oratorio at Oxford was a remarkable phenomenon that should have opened Handel’s eyes. The English public was used to and fond of masques and other semi-operatic plays—Esther was considered a masque—and it loved the odes and commemorative pieces; St. Mary’s in Oxford was filled for the performance of the Utrecht Te Deum and two of the Coronation Anthems. Athalia, however, was something new, the first mature specimen of the English oratorio as created by Handel; it was not only accepted but almost unreservedly acclaimed. This should have made Handel leave Italian opera to the Prince of Wales and his cohorts, and the composer could have rallied the vast English public round himself, but the scent of battle was in his nostrils, and, being a born competitor, Handel was not disposed to retreat. Besides, he still believed in his Italian opera and in his ability to make it triumph.
The tottering partnership with Heidegger was shored up for another try (though one wonders what could have persuaded that shrewd operator to risk what little, if any, remained of his investment), and the Haymarket Theatre opened its doors on October 30, 1733, somewhat hastily, with a pasticcio, Semiramide. The haste was obviously due to the Academy’s desire to open ahead of the Opera of the Nobility, and indeed, Handel beat them by two months. The date was a clever choice, for, since it was the King’s birthday, everyone of any standing at court was present —including the Prince of Wales! On November 13 Ottone was revived, again with the whole royal family in attendance. Needless to say, this type of music could not be performed without an Italian company headed by a castrato, and Handel, bereft of his company and unable to go on a personal recruiting trip with so little time at his disposal, would have been completely defeated had it not been for timely assistance from a least likely source. That vanished scoundrel, Owen Swiney, now styling himself MacSwiney, safe in Venice from prosecution for his theft of the box office receipts, did a good turn for his one-time victim by hunting up a first-class alto castrato, Giovanni Carestini. In addition Handel re-engaged Margherita Durastanti, his leading soprano who had left London nine years before, unable to bear the unfavorable comparisons with la nuova sirena, the youthful Faustina Bordoni. Now quite mature in years and experience, and her voice lowered to a mezzo, Durastanti apparently still could sing in the fast company of Carestini and Strada. The cast was rounded out by two lesser Italians, Maria Caterina Negri, a good contralto for the male roles, and the soprano castrato Carlo Scalzi, with Waltz taking the bass roles in the absence of a suitable Italian singer. The battle was on.
The Opera of the Nobility opened at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre on December 29, the company boasting Senesino, Montagnana, and all the rest of Handel’s fine company except La Strada; a year later Cuzzoni rejoined this star assembly. The rival establishment also annexed Handel’s secretary-librettist, Rolli, but of course the all-important person of the music director had to be sought elsewhere; the choice fell on Nicola Porpora.
Porpora (1686-1768) we have already encountered in Naples (see p. go) where his Agrippina preceded Handel’s opera of the same title. In the intervening time Porpora had become the most admired vocal teacher in the world, his pupils including Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimbeni, and a host of other great singers. This curious man, who lived long enough to become Haydn’s earliest teacher, was an extremely competent musician but a colorless dramatist. Some of his cantatas and, especially, a set of Latin duets show him in a very favorable light, nor is his instrumental music negligible. But fate somehow threw him into competition with the leading masters of opera, Lotti, Handel, Hasse, and Leo, whom he could not equal with his well-worked but pale operas. Nevertheless, his operas got around, being particularly highly regarded in Vienna, and the great castratos he trained made his name famous. In addition he instructed Metastasio in music, and the great court poet’s recommendation carried an immense weight. Porpora’s music does lack a strong personality, but it is well made and his vocal writing was second to none. He was neither the villain nor the nonentity the Handel literature often tends to make of him; Haydn always spoke of him with respect, and it was simply his misfortune to be pitted against Handel. Between 1733 and 1736 Porpora produced five operas, a serenata, and an oratorio for London. The last, Davide e Bersabea (Lent 1734), was supposed to best Deborah and Esther but fell far short. Thus, while the Opera of the Nobility had a superior company backed by political influence, they could not expect their redoubtable antagonist forever to temporize with pasticcios; it remained to be seen whether Porpora would be able to do what the infinitely more talented Bononcini could not.
Having got wind of Handel’s plan to set to music the Ariadne legend, Porpora had quickly produced his Arianna in Nasso for the opening of Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. Handel’s new opera, Arianna in Creta, presented on January 26, 1734., was moderately successful but not sufficiently so to demonstrate his superiority over his rival. The libretto, originally by Pariati, was probably arranged by Francis Colman and then retransl
ated into Italian, for it is markedly different in spirit and tone from the conventional Italian libretto. This did not make it easy for Handel. He could set to music an English text or an Italian text, striking their respective spirits with ease, but English dramatic ideas rendered in Italian handicapped him considerably, and he strove mightily to compensate for this discrepancy. The score is worked with great care, the orchestral part as fine as Handel could make it, and there are excellent descriptive passages, slumber songs, rage arias, and so on, everything proper and skilful, yet on the whole Arianna is only an average opera. The Prince of Wales with his cronies applauded Arianna in Nasso at Lincoln’s Inn Fields while the King and Queen ostentatiously attended Arianna in Creta at the Haymarket; the King, loathing his son, was not going to permit his favorite musician to be humbled. Humbled he was not, but even though the repeat performances testify to Arianna in Creta’s popularity, it left the two antagonists within their respective positions. They did not intend to stay there.
For the approaching wedding of Handel’s pupil and loyal friend, Anne, the Princess Royal, and William, Prince of Orange, Handel put together a serenata called Parnasso in Festa. The music consisted mainly of borrowings from Athalia, at that time not yet heard in London. Though a pasticcio, Parnasso in Festa contains a good deal of new music, the whole so skilfully arranged and blended that it has every right to be considered an independent and viable piece. Also much of the music fitted very nicely into its new surroundings: “Blooming virgins” is not very far from “Verginette dotte e belle,” and “Cheer her, o Baal,” sounds very acceptable when sung as “Cantiamo a Bacco.” This should warn those who see the oratorios as “sacred music” to be careful. The wonderfully robust and evocative hunting chorus “O quando bella gloria e quello del cacciator,” with its lusty orchestral accompaniment, must have cheered the audiences. The elaborate appeal Apollo addresses to the fauns and to the flowers, “Non tardate fauni,” with the following chorus, is Handel at his pastoral best. The third act contains much new music, all of it fresh and fragrant. Parnasso in Festa is studded with miniature concertos for oboe, bassoon, flute, and cello that offer never-ending pleasant surprises. Performed on March 13, and repeated five times, the serenata pleased the court, the bridal pair, and many Handelians, as did the Wedding Anthem (another contrafactum; see p. 226).
Revivals of Sosarme, Deborah, Acis and Galatea, and of Il Pastor fido, the latter a curious choice, filled out the season. By July both opera houses closed. The number of performances—even Il Pastor fido was repeated a dozen times—should not deceive us; the Haymarket Theatre played to nearly empty houses. But so did the Opera of the Nobility. Clearly Italian opera in London was in decline; there was not a sufficient audience for two opera houses. Heidegger, wanting to cut his losses, dissolved the partnership, and the Opera of the Nobility, taking advantage of the situation, acquired the lease of the Haymarket Theatre. Heidegger’s role in the dissolution of the second Academy was not quite above board; the delivery of the Haymarket Theatre with all its appurtenances to the competitors was an underhanded affair. Now Handel had neither a theatre nor the necessary capital to invest in one. The Prince of Wales happily announced that the King’s favorite musician was eliminated, and Porpora could rightly feel that the operatic crown had passed to him. This must have been the consensus, the Abbé Prévost even suggesting that nothing remained for Handel but “to return to his native land.” Handel did indeed leave London, but only for a month’s rest at Tunbridge Wells, whence he returned at the end of August.
All parties, from the Prince of Wales down, underestimated the will power of this magnificent opportunist. Before leaving for Tunbridge Wells, Handel unhesitatingly went to the quarter that had administered the final blow to the original Royal Academy of Music: John Rich’s son. Why Rich, who was a businessman grown affluent on ballad operas and other “light” entertainment, consented to let Handel operate in his theatre is difficult to understand. Handel had little to offer. His once outstanding troupe of singers was with the competing theatre, only Strada stood by him through thick and thin; meanwhile the Haymarket Theatre considerably enhanced the lustre of its artistic personnel by adding not only Cuzzoni but also Farinelli to the roster. Opening the Haymarket season on October 29, 1734, with Artaserse, most of the music presumably by Hasse, with both Senesino and Farinelli in the cast, the Opera of the Nobility scored a success that dwarfed anything yet seen in London; there were twenty-eight performances of Artaserse. The opera played to crowded houses; for all practical purposes Handel was doomed. Nevertheless, he gathered Carestini, Strada, Waltz, Maria Negri, and her sister Rosa, completing the company with a young English tenor, John Beard, a chorister from the Chapel Royal who was to play an important part in Handel’s later career, and went to work with them.
The Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, as Rich’s house was now called, offered mixed fare: plays, ballets, and now with Handel’s forces joining the enterprise, opera. The début of the Covent Garden opera company on November 9, 1734, was modest: they produced II Pastor fido, after which Arianna was revived, followed by a pasticcio. Finally, on January 8, 1735, Handel presented his new opera, Ariodante, with two new singers added to the cast: Cecilia Young, a fine young soprano whom Burney considered superior to any female English singer of the time, and a nondescript tenor named Stoppalaer.
The libretto by Salvi (after Ariosto) was well arranged for Handel by Rolli, and Handel immediately responded, composing a magnificent opera, dramatically sound, and musically at a very high level throughout. The few moments of conventionality are reserved for some of the castrato arias. As usual, the women are outstanding. Ginevra, again, is entirely feminine but strong enough to defend herself against unwanted advances. She breaks into uninhibited joy (“Volate amori”) when her father blesses her love for Ariodante, then strikes an altogether different tone when she is accused of a liaison with Polisseno. Ginevra is a remarkable personality, and all her music is equally remarkable. Dalinda does not win our entire sympathy, perhaps because she flickers a little insubstantially as a human being; she is weak in character, easily persuaded, but very pleasant and womanly. Ariodante’s music is as rich as his moods are varied; seldom had Handel written such a solid, manly role for a castrato. The same is true of Polisseno, who is a cold, scheming villain whose character cannot be fully realized by a contralto. If both of these parts were arranged for male voices, Ariodante would be seen to be a viable and altogether modern opera. For, in addition to the fine vocal parts, this score is full of wonderful instrumental music, delectable dance tunes, and graceful ritornels. Ariodante represents a stylistic departure, demonstrating that Handel did not miss the new stirrings in Neapolitan opera that he must have heard during his recent trip to Italy. There is also a strong French strain in this opera, to which we shall return.
Perhaps because of its refinement and sophisticated texture, Ariodante did not make the impression it should have made, and we once more see Handel flirting with English works—Esther was revived on March 5, and ran for six performances. This, however, may have been because of Lent, the traditional oratorio season. An interesting feature of the announcement is the notice that two new concertos for the organ would be played by Handel between the acts. Apparently his playing of these concertos was beginning to be regarded as a drawing card. On March 26 Deborah followed, again interspersed with organ concertos, among them a new one. Athalia, “with a new concerto,” joined the repertory on April 1. Thus Handel actually presented a Lenten season of oratorios as he was to do later, but he was far from capitulating. On the 16th of April he returned to Italian opera with a vengeance: Alcina is an absolutely beguiling masterpiece that found immediate favor.
The fairy tale from Ariosto, probably arranged by Antonio Marchi, fired Handel’s imagination. This time the sorcerer is a woman, Alcina, which suited Handel better than Zoroaster, and the foil to this powerful and possessed woman, the gentle Bradamante, gave him opportunities for characterization that he particula
rly welcomed. Ruggiero is completely under Alcina’s spell, while the faithful Bradamante tries to free her betrothed from the siren. This is the core of the story, which of course had to be suitably enlarged and complicated. Bradamante, therefore, is disguised as a fetching youth, causing complication number one: Alcina’s sister, Morgana, falls in love with “him.” Thereupon Morgana’s lover, Oronte, is torn with jealousy. By-and-by others join the intrigue, and all the wheels of a well-appointed opera are whirling.
Handel liked his women feminine; only when they had passed the age of love-making, when they became matriarchs, did he make them forbiddingly strong and imperious. Alcina is no Turandot, she is a full-blooded and warm-hearted woman who wants to love and be loved by Ruggiero. All her arias are love music, full of desire, but there is nothing unseemly about them. Even when she sees that Ruggiero is slipping from her clutches, she is more desolated than angry. Her great arioso, “Ah, Ruggiero crudel,” and especially the following aria, “Ombre pallide,” are without peers in the operatic literature. Only once does she really act with vehemence, in the great aria “Ma quando tornerai,” which is a rage-and-revenge piece of the type beloved by Italian composers and audiences; but womanliness returns in the ineffable siciliana, “Mi restano le lagrime.” Ruggiero is not much of a man, or rather he is a ladies’ man whom Handel carries to the brink of the buffo manner. But he does sing a pair of sweet and affecting love songs, of which “Verdi prati” is of extraordinary beauty. Bradamante is caught in a woman’s dual existence in an enchanted world of passionate dream-surrender and an orderly world of domestic affections and duties. She is confident that her wayward lover will tire of Alcina’s ardor and will return to her less unnerving charms.
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