Characterizations of Semele in Handel's Dramatic Work
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CHARACTERIZATIONS OF SEMELE IN HANDEL’S DRAMATIC WORK Ò AN HONORS THESIS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC CHRISTINE M. MUMMA TUFTS UNIVERSITY 2009 Acknowledgements: While writing this thesis took me countless hours of study and typing in libraries around the world, I could not have completed it without the help of several instrumental people. First and foremost is my adviser in the music department at Tufts University, Professor Jane Bernstein. Her guidance, advice, and comments were vital to the completion of this project. She not only kept me on track throughout the lengthy process but also steered me in the right direction when at times I felt hopelessly lost and overwhelmed. I would also like to thank Professor Alessandra Campana for serving on my thesis committee and for her great enthusiasm about music history that inspired me while I was in her class. The Undergraduate Research Fund under the direction of Dean James Glaser provided me with funds to travel to London to conduct research at the British Library and see the Handel House Museum. Both were invaluable sources of information. Professor Ellen Harris at MIT took the time to meet with me and help me narrow down my subject as well as providing me with great leads for research before I went to London, and John K. Andrews, Ph.D. corresponded with me and assisted in directing me to several very relevant articles to my thesis topic. The staffs of the Tisch Library at Tufts University, Boston University’s Ingalls Engineering Resource Center, and the Beloit College Library were all accommodating to me while I spent time working there. Special thanks goes to Michael Rogan, Julie-Ann Bryson and the student staff at the Lilly Music Library at Tufts for assisting me with so many inquiries and material requests throughout the year. Additionally, the staff at the British Library in London was magnificent in helping me track down relevant Handel sources and distinguishing between relevant manuscripts, autographs, and librettos. Finally, I would like to thank my friends for their encouragement when I thought I would never finish, but most of all, I want to acknowledge my parents. Growing up with musicians for parents, music was an integral part of our household, and my love of such diverse genres stems directly from their influence. I want to especially thank them for their unwavering support and feedback during this thesis process. --Christine Mumma, April 28, 2009 Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: Handel, Opera seria and the Oratorio Chapter 2: Handel, the Emergence of the English Oratorio, and the Creation of Semele Chapter 3: Semele: Opera or Oratorio? Chapter 4: Origins of Story and Libretto Chapter 5: Semele as Social and Political Commentary Chapter 6: Semele: Her Character and Music Chapter 7: Performance History, Editions, and Recordings Conclusion Bibliography Characterizations of Semele in Handel’s Dramatic Work Growing up in the small town of Halle, Germany at the end of the seventeenth-century, the concept of London, England must have seemed to belong to another world for the young George Frideric Handel. Yet the prolific composer would spend almost two-thirds of his life in his adopted homeland and manage to not only become the preeminent opera composer in the country but also to establish a new form – the English oratorio. Under pressure from political elements to not stray from his own structures, Handel had difficulty when, in the mid 1730s, it appeared that Italian opera in London was failing. Struggling to continue to write innovative and appreciated works, he fluctuated between opera and a popular style of oratorio that had originally been written for a private patron, and taken off almost by accident. Yet within this new form, Handel broke his own well-established rules when he created the work Semele. Experts have argued whether this is in fact an oratorio, a masque, an English opera, or something else entirely. To be sure, Handel deviated from his own well- established guidelines in creating either an oratorio on a non-secular subject, or an opera in English that was merely sung and not enacted as well. Handel’s aberration is an important juncture in the history of not only English music but the development of precedent in European style. Oratorio as a distinct genre was created by Handel and flourished for centuries across the continent; conversely, opera in Italian fell out of favor with the English public at this time, and opera written in the English language, unlike French, Italian, or German, never emerged as a viable, serious, or popular endeavor. CHAPTER ONE: Handel, Opera seria and the Oratorio When Handel came to England after growing up in Germany and studying in Italy, he was known first and foremost as a composer of opera. Filling the void left by the deaths of John Blow and Henry Purcell in England, Handel essentially introduced England to Italian opera with the production of his Rinaldo, which was a huge success among the growing concert-going public.1 Prior to this, the term “opera” in London really referred to what is known as semi-opera - a mixture of spoken lines interspersed with supplementary music;2 straight drama and pasticcios made up of both English and Italian songs dominated the London stage.3 Although he was under contract to return to Hanover where he had been appointed as Kapellmiester, renowned for his virtuosic organ-playing abilities, Handel soon returned to London, where he would remain for the rest of his life. The music and theatre of England would forever be changed by his influence. Opera seria, more than anything else, was a showcase for its singers. The original operas were almost always written with specific singers and their abilities and talents in mind; however, when a revival was mounted, the inability to incorporate the original cast often meant that changes must be considered. Like his contemporaries, Handel often borrowed from his other operas or works to compensate for holes or the capabilities of his performers with the result that several of his operas ended up as pasticcios, with music taken from both himself as well as others. Another tradition (which evidence shows might have been used in Semele and perhaps other oratorios as well, if only to even out the number of arias sung by each leading role) was the practice of having other characters sing arias for what were originally different vocal ranges. The emphasis on individual performances and arias was so great that Handel would rather have a different character sing the piece, as written, than either exclude it altogether or somehow modify 1 Handel House Museum Informational Display 2 Richard Platt, ed., Musica Britannica: A National Collection of Music, LXXVI, Semele: An Opera, (London: Stainer and Bell, 2000), xxiii. 3 Winton Dean, Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 367. it to fit the range of the new singer4 (Handel ardently believed in the idea that each key had not only its own timbre, but also an ideal purpose, and thus would have been especially reluctant to change the key dramatically unless absolutely left with no other option). Character types were usually represented by vocal ranges. The castrati who sang soprano and alto were the superstars, and thus it was they who usually sang the role of hero. Villains, old men and lesser males were played by basses and baritones. Tenor roles were uncommon and usually inconsequential. The heroines were portrayed by sopranos, often with a prima donna in the lead, although in order to avoid possible calamity at points in his career Handel balanced two female soprano leads in works such as Alessandro. Matrons were normally played by altos.5 Most of the characters were clearly defined as “good” or “bad” – people the audience should root for and sympathize with versus scoundrels it was easy to denounce. Although some of these conventions carried over to oratorio, many seemed to no longer matter as much. For instance, castrati were rarely included because English singers could and were used. Tenors then became more popular as the range for the hero. Anthony Lewis writes, “Handel chose the aria as the chief vehicle for his melodic thought. Perhaps to say he ‘chose’ it is to be rather misleading, for he was primarily a dramatic composer and the aria had been generally established as the lyrical form in opera seria…well before Handel’s maturity.” He continues, “Even if he had been moved to do so [modify the standard forms of the aria], it is doubtful whether he would have felt there was sufficient justification to devise a new form.”6 Like most composers of dramatic music during this time period, Handel explicitly avoided writing pieces for more than two soloists in his operas. Dean 4 Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel’s Operas 1704 – 1726 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 5-6. 5 Eric T. Lam, “Rhetoric and Baroque Opera Seria” GFHandel.org, http://gfhandel.org/seria.htm. 6 Anthony Lewis, “Handel and the Aria,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 85th Session (1958-9), 95- 6. JSTOR. writes that “there was no place for the higher drama in opera seria” and thus there are only six trios and three quartets in Handel’s forty operas.7 Instead, mood was conveyed through arias. Each aria is limited to a certain temper or Affekt, occasionally two if the B section presents a divergent mood; however, since each aria was presumably in the da capo form, the original disposition is the important point and the one with which the audience will be left. Through these arias, Handel built up a character over time, as he or she reacted to situation, revealed motivations, and exposed personal foibles.