This is an unusual opera anthology, in that although it contains five arias
there is no whisper of the human voice. In total the disc features music
from seven of Handel's operas, offering besides the arias an equal number
of overtures, the remainder being comprised of ballet selections. It may
be unusual, but given the frequency with which we are offered collections
of vocal excerpts, why not an instrumental programme?
Handel at the Opera opens with 21 minutes of music from Alicina HWV34,
by far the most fully represented work. Handel completed Alicina on
the 8th of April 1735, by which time he had been writing opera
for the London stage for a quarter of a century. The first performance was
given at Covent Garden just 8 days later, and to where Handel had recently
relocated following the loss to his company of the King's Theatre. Covent
Garden may have been less prestigious and smaller, but it did offer one distinct
advantage, a troupe of French ballet dancers in the employ John Rich, the
theatre manager. Therefore, as he had occasionally in the past, Handel began
to incorporate dance sequences into his operas. Thus, apart from the overture,
we are given eight brief dances pieces from Alicina, and one aria.
Such was the thirst for Handel's music that instrumental arrangements were
made by various musicians for performance both public and private. Finally
the inevitable happened, the arrangements became so successful that they
made their way back into the opera-house, where they were used as interlude
music between scenes. It is of course performances of these arrangements
which appear on this instrumental collection.
Armino HWV36 dates from the following year and is here represented by the
overture and a brief minuet, while Serse HWV40, composed in the winter
of 1737-8, inevitably provides, by 'Ombra mai fu', originally an aria for
the castrato Caffarelli, now forever immortalised as 'Handel's Largo'. There
is an aria from Handel's, first London opera, Rinaldo HWV7 and rather
more extended sequences of music from BerniceHWV38, Rodelinda HWV19
and Ariodante HWV33.
Simon Standage, a founder member of the English Concert and Professor of
Baroque Violin at both the Royal Academy of Music and the Dresdner Akademie
fur Alte Musik, and Collegium Musicum 90 are together on familiar ground,
having already recorded three volumes of the Handel Concerti Grossi
for Chandos, together with Apollo e Dafne and Crudel tiranno
Amor. Performing with calm confidence on authentic instruments or modern
replicas they achieve a very natural and well-balanced sound. The music is
of course rather more relaxed than Handel's famous instrumental show-pieces,
the Water and Fireworks music, yet holds much that should captivate
both the general listener and the devotee of the composer's music - I am
always loath to use the term Handelian, the implicit idol worship doing neither
party justice. Likewise, if the Concerti Grossi appeal, so should
the music here.
On caveat: Handel at the Opera is perhaps a disc to be played in small
doses rather than taken all at once. This music was meant to be part of a
greater event, and it may offer its best rewards as one element in of an
evening's listening. Beguiling and pleasurable, most definitely yes, a treat
to have in the collection when something a little different is in order,
yet probably not an album to play all the way through and lend one's fullest
attention. Nevertheless, a most warmly recommended release.
Reviewer
Gary S. Dalkin
Collegium
Musicum 90 conducted by Simon Standage
