Staging a Handel opera Andrew V. Jones Early Music, Volume 34, Number 2, May 2006, pp. 277-287 (Article) Published by Oxford University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/199746 Access provided by Northwestern University Library (22 Aug 2018 23:38 GMT) v performing matters v Andrew V. Jones Staging a Handel opera The musical performance [...] was excellent, and had the rare aspects of the production. The musical presentation virtue of giving the complete score uncut, as performed in 1741. of Handel’s score might be historically informed in ... [ ] One was puzzled by the fact that Deidamia’s lovely aria matters of performance practice, but it will not about a nightingale at the end of Act I was set in the Antarctic with the heroine seated on an iceberg and apparently addressing necessarily observe the composer’s intentions at a penguin, while Ulysses was rowed around by American sailors the most fundamental level: that of musical sub- in a rubber dinghy. [...] In Act II there was a scene in which stance. Almost every performance of Tamerlano in everyone was under water (cue for Achilles to be a frogman), recent years, for example, has ignored Handel’s and the hunting chorus was performed in a wild-west setting 1 last-minute decision to end Act 2 not with Asteria’s among cacti (cue for someone to sit on one by accident). 2 grief-laden aria ‘Cor di padre’, which he realized he combination of a historically aware musical did not make sense in the dramatic context, but Tperformance with a production style which— with her cautiously optimistic and dramatically whether consciously or not—ignores the compo- appropriate ‘Se potessi un dı` placare’. (This practice ser’s instructions and the conventions of his day is continued even after the publication of the now such a common feature of Handel opera per- ¨ 3 Hallische Handel-Ausgabe, in which the editor, formances that it has almost become the norm. Terence Best, printed Handel’s final decision in Certainly it is seen as a selling-point, as is demon- the main text and emphasized its superiority in his 5 strated by the publicity brochure for a recent pro- comments in the Preface.) In the same opera duction of Handel’s Flavio, in which the musical some conductors find it difficult to respect the full director wrote: ‘What makes the [name of opera extent of Handel’s abbreviation of the final scene company] unique is that while we perform on by omitting Asteria’s aria ‘Padre amato’; it is indeed authentic instruments and in period style, I always a fine piece, but, together with the surrounding insist that our productions are set in a contempo- material which Handel also removed, it is anti- rary situation—not just vaguely modern, but this climactic after Bajazet’s suicide. And how many year, today. That is my way of being authentic, performances of Alcina have included at the end of because that is how things were done in Handel’s 2 4 Act the little scrap of recitative from Ariodante day.’ The vocabulary (especially ‘unique’ and that Chrysander mistakenly printed on p.107 of his ‘authentic’) raises questions that could profitably edition of Alcina? Even our knowledge of perform- be discussed, but it is more important to set them ance practice is selectively applied. The chief cri- in a broader context. No one would deny that terion by which historical awareness is assessed is updating a Handel opera produces problems: in the use of period instruments; other important the case of Flavio, for example, present-day Britain aspects are often overlooked. For example, it is not is not ruled by a governor from Lombardy, and unusual to hear the B section of a da capo aria per- men do not fight duels to satisfy slighted honour. formed at a different speed (it might be slower or But updating is only a symptom, and the underlying faster) from the A section, even though Handel attitude is liable to affect more than just the visual uses essentially the same musical material and Early Music, Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 Ó The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/em/cal005 Advance Access Published on 10 April 2006 277 would have written a new tempo indication if he thinking (stereotypical female and male views of had wanted one. And it is common to hear a singer marriage, set in a modern kitchen), and Flavio, the modify the last phrase of a da capo repeat so that it king of medieval Lombardy, appeared as a giant ends at the upper octave, thus ignoring all evidence garden gnome who, having removed his costume, about ornamentation in the 18th century and creat- crawled into and out of a Wendy house, played ing a lop-sided effect in the melodic structure of the with little electric racing cars and sucked jelly beans. aria as a whole. Of course not all present-day per- However ludicrous they might be, these and other formances of Handel’s operas display shortcomings images will be Handel’s opera Flavio for those such as these. Thanks in large part to the gradual audiences. appearance of operas in the Hallische Ha¨ndel- Any musical performance is based on a com- 6 Ausgabe, the notes and the words are often correct. bination of the composer’s intentions and the Many singers, instrumentalists and conductors performers’ interpretation, and on the interaction understand Handelian performance practice and between them and a third element: the response 7 style; and a few stage directors have been bold of the audience. In the case of opera, not only the enough to put on productions whose visual ele- working-out of these elements but also the ways in ments take account of the staging, costumes and which they interact is more complicated; and acting style that would have been familiar to Baroque opera, in which field the works of Handel Handel. All too often, however, it is difficult to stand pre-eminent, represents a still more acute escape the impression that the underlying attitude, manifestation of the problem. Such interaction can especially on the part of the stage director, is based have very significant consequences: three per- not on respect for the composer and his opera, but formances of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony will be rather on a self-indulgent desire to impose an inter- far more similar than will three staged productions pretation that has little relevance to the plot, or in of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Differences between the belief that a modern audience is incapable of performances are not bad in themselves, but when appreciating the original on its terms, and has to they are so extreme that the identity of the opera be entertained by gimmicks and cheap jokes. is undermined, one might justifiably ask: what is No doubt many of the decisions taken in prepar- a Handel opera? why are there such marked dif- ing a Handel opera for performance are prompted ferences between productions of the same work? by genuine and sincerely held convictions. But what is the attitude of the producer to Handel’s doubts creep in when one examines the inter- opera and to his audience? has there been any dis- relationship between these decisions, or compares cussion between the producer and the conductor? them with the composer’s instructions, intentions There is no doubt that in Handel’s mind the and expectations, or assesses them in the light of answer to the first question was, in the most general an audience’s actual (as opposed to imagined) terms: it is a drama that is acted out on stage by response. And anxieties arise when one remembers singers accompanied by an orchestra—that is to that, because staged performances of Handel’s say, it is a simultaneous representation of a story operas are relatively infrequent, most members of in singing and acting. Quite apart from the subject- an audience will have no point of comparison in ive evidence of the music itself, whose gestures are either their past or their future experience. Hence often so vivid that it is difficult to imagine a com- they rely for their image of the opera on a single poser not having their physical equivalents in stage director and his particular conception, which mind, there is objective evidence that, as he com- might or might not have anything to do with posed, Handel did indeed have a mental picture 8 Handel’s conception. For audiences at the pro- of what would be happening on stage. In Act 3 9 duction of Flavio referred to earlier, the first arias scene 5 of Scipione, for example, he inserted the of Emilia and Guido were ‘illustrated’ by video stage direction ‘sceso dal trono’ (‘having descended projections onto a huge screen that represented from the throne’) alongside Scipione’s name, at (in the producer’s opinion) what they were really the moment when Scipione releases Berenice; it is 278 early music may 2006 present neither in Salvi’s source libretto (1704) nor though essential items of stage furniture are always in Rolli’s adaptation for Handel. In the final mentioned (e.g. a throne or a tomb). Occasionally scene of Giulio Cesare in Egitto it seems that no location is given (e.g. Teseo, IV.i, Floridante, III.i Handel wished to make it absolutely clear that and Scipione, III.i). Scenic transformations are care- only Sesto and not his mother, Cornelia, should fully described, for example in Amadigi, Admeto 12 kneel before Cesare.