Tag: Author: Mark Windisch

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The progress from Keyboard virtuoso to Opera composer of Genius 

By Mark Windisch

One must delve into biographies of Handel to trace where his interest in stage works first became evident. Mainwaring writes of a visit to Berlin in 1698 where Handel was supposed to have met Ariosti and Bononcini. (There appear to be some inaccuracies in Mainwaring’s statements as the reports of Handel’s meeting these composers do not tally with his stated age at the time.) However, it may be assumed that the young Handel could have made more than one visit to the Ducal Palace in view of the position (barber/surgeon) both Handel’s
brother and his father had in the Duke’s household.


It is certainly true that a well-known composer, Johann Philipp Krieger was active in the Ducal palace at that time. It is recorded that he produced 18 German operas there. We don’t know how many of these the young Handel heard, but in Handel’s 1698 theme book there are pieces of music by J P Krieger or his younger brother J Krieger, which implies he had access to the scores. Handel used music by J P Krieger in several of his compositions. The Weissenfels palace had a flourishing artistic programme and was supported by Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739). In addition, nearby Leipzig had a flourishing opera company directed by N A Strungk (1640-1700), who was music director there from 1693-96 and was succeeded later in this post by G P Telemann (1681-1767) from 1702 to 1705. Probably these performances in Weissenfels were not the more modern Opera Seria style, but were certainly performed with beautiful scenery and costumes which would probably have appealed to a young man with a strong imagination, if he was permitted to attend.

The Ducal palace at Weissenfels might have been one place where Handel’s interest was aroused. The question I ask myself is whether Duke Johann Adolf I, who clearly spotted Handel’s talent early and persuaded Handel’s father that he should encourage Handel to study music, carried his interest in the boy further. Might he not have allowed young Handel to attend performances in the castle?

Duke Johann Adolf I

Handel’s training with Zachow was mostly with keyboard music and his paid employment was as church organist at the Cathedral in Halle so probably his professional exposure to theatrical music would have been quite limited. However,
the interest must have been there, even if latent, because he had a lifelong interest in composing music in this genre later.


Music at Weissenfels Castle
Neu-Augustusberg castle is a fine building
erected by the father and grandfather of
Duke Johann Adolf I who spotted Handel’s talent early. The Duke Johann Adolph I had a recorded interest in all the arts and was clearly a man of taste and discernment, choosing many musicians to write music for performance in his castle. Johann Philipp Krieger and his younger brother were both accomplished musicians. Johann Philipp was born in 1648 in Nuremberg, had a spell as Chief Kapellmeister in Bayreuth and held several important positions in Halle. Handel borrowed a number of themes from Krieger’s compositions.

Johann Philipp wanted to study the Italian style and to this end he took himself to Venice to study with Johann Rosenmüller, an exiled German. Krieger is known to have composed “singspiele” which were published in Nuremberg in 1690. Chrysander gives the titles of some operas written for BrunswickWolfenbüttel in 1693, some of which were also performed in Hamburg. (These operas are referred to by Rev J R Milne in my copy of Groves Dictionary from 1928, who significantly states “one may unhesitatingly class them with similar works by Handel.”).

J.S. Bach also travelled to Weissenfels in 1714, where his first secular cantata was performed. Entitled Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd (‘The lively hunt is all my heart’s desire’, BWV 208), it was written to celebrate the birthday of Duke Christian of Saxe-Weissenfels. A few years later, Bach gave a number of recitals at the royal court in Weissenfels, which enjoyed an excellent reputation far and wide for the high quality of its
musical performances. In 1729, Bach was appointed Royal Kapellmeister of Saxe-Weissenfels by the Duke – a position he was entitled to exercise without having to relocate. These facts give some insights into music life in Weissenfels. As a footnote Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), probably the most famous German musician of the seventeenth century was born and died in this town which had quite a history of musical figures.

Leipzig
The Oper am Brühl was the first opera house in Leipzig and existed from 1693 to 1720. It was initiated by Nicolaus Adam Strungk who saw an opportunity to bring in an audience during the trade fairs (for which Leipzig is still famous). An application was made to the Saxon Elector, Johann Georg IV and was granted for a period of ten years. An architect with Italian experience, Girolamo Sartorio who had built the Hamburg opera house was chosen and put up the building in only four months. The building was a three storey wooden house with a gable roof, 47 metres long, 15 meters wide and 10 metres high. It had a semi-circular auditorium with fifty boxes.

The first opera performed there was Alceste by Strungk on 8 May 1693. The architect, Sartorio built elaborate scenery with a forest, a royal palace, and a
fire-breathing dragon. In 1696 Christian Ludwig Boxberg joined as composer and librettist and his scores are preserved as the oldest surviving Germanlanguage opera from Central Germany. The Opera House flourished when Telemann took over direction in 1703. Even when Telemann left Leipzig for Sorau (now Zary in modern day Poland, then under Saxon rule,) he continued to compose for the Leipzig Opera.


Handel is not mentioned in the history of this opera house although, as a close friend of Telemann, it is likely that he would have attended at least one major work by Telemann. With his legendary energy, Telemann founded the opera orchestra (mostly with amateur musicians), played the keyboard, and even performed as a singer in some productions. In 1704, his opera Germanicus with text by Christine Dorothea Lachs (Strungk’s daughter) was first performed there. Handel moved to Hamburg in 1703 but I cannot imagine that he would not have made the effort to see Germanicus performed in Leipzig.


In total there were 104 productions in the 27 years of the opera house’s existence. Unfortunately, the Leipzig opera house was deemed to be in a dangerous state in 1719 and was demolished in 1729. The company then moved to Opernhaus vorm Salztor in nearby Naumburg.

Hamburg
The Opera in the Gänsemarkt in Hamburg was an altogether more professional arrangement. It was started in 1678 and ran through up to 1738. It was the first theatre in a German-speaking country to have a continuous cast. It was run as a public body without (unusually for the time) any financial support from the nobility or religious establishments. It was founded by a cultured alderman, Gerhard Schott who had travelled widely and encountered opera in Italy. He was supported by Johann Adam Reincken, organist and Kapellmeister of Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

Despite some opposition from certain elements of the religious community Girolamo Sartorio (brother of the composer) was engaged to design the theatre and its opening took place on 2 January 1678 with a sacred opera Adam and Eva by Johann Theile. Soon other opera composers submitted works for performance, amongst them Antonio Sartorio, a leading Venetian Opera composer and Kapellmeister to the Catholic Duke Johann Friedrich, Nicolo Minato, Johann Wolfgang Franck, Agostino Steffani, and many others.

The Gänsemarkt opera house became embroiled in several arguments between the pietists who hated the idea of the provision of public entertainment and the standard version of Protestantism which tolerated and even encouraged it. Reinhard Keiser directed
the Opera House between 1703 and 1707, when he employed Handel as violinist
and cembalist. It was during the performance of Mattheson’s opera, Cleopatra where the famous duel between Handel and Mattheson took place. There seemed to be some intense rivalry between the two of them concerning who might take over from Keiser and it might well have spilt over to trigger this duel. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries and their differences were settled amicably. During his time in Hamburg Handel worked on Almira, Nero and Daphne by way of learning how to compose operas. In 1722 Telemann took over management of the opera house, but by this time Handel had been in England for ten years. Handel and Telemann remained lifelong friends and often Telemann would adapt an opera Handel composed for his London theatres. Telemann did not have Handel’s access to expensive prima donnas so he had to rewrite arias, often in German, making a dual language hybrid.

After a short time while working in Hamburg, Handel met Gian Gastone de Medici who invited him to Italy to hear the Italian singers, who Gian Gastone praised very hugely. Handel might well have started his stay in Italy in Florence with Gian Gastone, but it was not long before he visited the music making centres of Venice, Rome, and Naples. The only date we know for certain was 14 January 1707 where Handel’s appearance is noted in the diary
of Francesco Valesio, recording that he had played the organ excellently in St John Lateran in Rome.

Opera was banned in Rome after the papal edict of 1698 but Handel exercised his considerable talents for vocal writing with some splendid cantatas and some major works like Il trionfo del Tempo and the brilliant Dixit Dominus. These all helped him to write music which suited the rhythm and metre of opera sung in Italian. He became kappelmeister of the Hanoverian court in 1710.

On securing an initial twelve month leave of absence from the Hanoverian court, he managed to make his way to London to start his 48-year career as a composer of operas, oratorios and more. In 1711 his opening opera in London, Rinaldo was a great success and launched his operatic career. Following Rinaldo Handel’s career took off in a series of amazing operas and oratorios, the like of which has not been equalled to this day.

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The Triumph of Virtue (or Trust me, I am a composer)

Mark Windisch

Between June 1994 and June 2015 Mr Clifford Bartlett published an Early Music magazine entitled “Early Music Review.” Mr Bartlett who had been a librarian and later a publisher of music under the name King’s Music was a greatly respected figure within the Early Music field.

Early Music Review was suffused with the highly personal, very learnèd if slightly eccentric nature of the editor. The format was always the same. The front page had an editorial. The following pages were filled with reviews of musical publications, books, (sometimes books only obliquely connected with music) and articles from learned sources, following the latest performance trends. There followed several pages of reviews of CDs and often there was a piece of music, sometimes a piece that was not widely available, arranged by Mr Bartlett or his colleague Mr Brian Clark. Every issue contained a very witty and appropriate cartoon by Mr David Hill. Occasionally there was a seasonal recipe. Finally, there were letters from correspondents, often complaining about a review which was perhaps considered to be unfair. Handel often featured in the magazine and articles were often provided by well-known scholarly people.

Sadly, Mr Bartlett died in 2019 after a spell of mental and physical decline. As both he and the relevant contributor are now deceased, I thought readers might be intrigued by this account – a disagreement between a reviewer and a conductor about a CD of Handel’s music. The conductor was Mr Joachim Carlos Martini (1931-2015) and the reviewer, a name familiar to all Handelians, was Mr Tony Hicks (1943-2010).

The piece in question was a Naxos recording promoted as the premiere recording of Handel’s only Italian choral oratorio, entitled Il Trionfo di Tempo e della Verita. Handel devotees will know that this is one of Handel’s first oratorios and is in the Roman style with conversations between characters representing ideas rather than people. In this particular one, Beauty has to decide between Pleasure and Duty before finally reaching enlightenment. Handel returned to the theme several times as described below.

Mr Bartlett clearly thought that this was an important issue, both stimulating and contentious and gave Mr Hicks sufficient space in the magazine to write a detailed review of the recording, far more than was normally allocated for CD reviews. The recording had been taken from a live performance using Die Junge Kantorei, an amateur choir that Mr Martini had founded and it was subsequently marketed under the Naxos label. Mr Martini had already issued a large number of works by Handel in this way.

Mr Hicks’ first point is that in some of the other recordings prior to Il Trionfo Mr Martini had inserted movements from other works by Handel which Handel had never used in that context. In other words, Mr Martini was rather prone to alter Handel’s compositions without any clear justification. In this case Mr Hicks, who had not long since produced a score for this work for performance at the London Handel Festival, thought that Martini had overstepped the mark and said so.

Readers will no doubt know that this work was first produced by Handel in Rome in 1707 under the title Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion) HWV46a. Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili produced the libretto. 30 years later (1737&1739) Handel revised and expanded it twice into three sections under the title Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verita (The Triumph of Time and Truth) HWV 46b. After a further 20 years (when the composer was blind and towards the end of his life,) the oratorio was further expanded and revised with a libretto in English by Thomas Morell, (probably with John Christopher Smith assembling the score with Handel’s knowledge) as The Triumph of Time and Truth HWV 71.

Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili produced the original libretto of Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno.
Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili
Thomas Morrell wrote the libretto in English for the final version of Readers will no doubt know that this work was first produced by Handel in Rome in 1707 under the title Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (The Triumph of Time and Disillusion) HWV46a. Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili produced the libretto. 30 years later (1737&1739) Handel revised and expanded it twice into three sections under the title Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verita (The Triumph of Time and Truth) HWV 46b. After a further 20 years (when the composer was blind and towards the end of his life,) the oratorio was further expanded and revised with a libretto in English by Thomas Morell, (probably with John Christopher Smith assembling the score with Handel’s knowledge) as The Triumph of Time and Truth HWV 71.
Thomas Morrell
John Christopher Smith probably assembled the score.
John Christopher Smith

It seems that, in the Martini recording, the 1737 version was enhanced by 49 minutes of additional music from the 1707 version and whole pieces from the 1739 version. Mr Hicks’ opinion was that Handel had removed the 1707 extracts in 1737 because they were not appropriate for the mood and context of the 1737 performance. In other words, as the composer, he had his reasons. Mr Martini’s additions from the 1739 version were anachronistic. To make matters worse, the CD notes were no help in explaining how Mr Martini arrived at his decision to create a Frankenstein version of the oratorio.

To his credit, Mr Hicks softens the blow by paying tribute to Mr Martini’s musicianship and praises his attempt to produce as much of Handel’s fine music as possible. However he didn’t hide his disappointment at the lost opportunity to release a recording of a version with integrity at a reasonable price, courtesy of Naxos. Mr Hicks likes the soloists, but the chorus is another matter and comes in for severe criticism.

When it comes to detailed analysis (in which Mr Hicks as a trained mathematician excelled) of the score which Mr Martini had constructed, Mr Hicks highlights a whole raft of solecisms. One is the strange justification given of having consulted another Handel scholar Mr Bernd Baselt about the use of the carillon. It seems that Mr Martini, having found out that Handel used the carillon to replace a solo violin at one point, ignored the fact that the carillon is a transposing instrument and inserted a part for it in the wrong key, thus failing to link properly to Belezza’s aria.

Handel omitted the Sarabande, ‘Lascia la spina’ which opens the 1707 version, but Mr Martini put it back in and follows it with an elaborate harpsichord arrangement taken from Almira and then puts in the aria. Later he adds a section from Acis and Galatea under the title Interludium. There are several more insertions which Mr Hicks considered inappropriate.

Mr Hicks refers to his own work on preparing the 1737 score for the performance at the London Handel Festival with Paul Nicholson conducting. His review of Mr Martini makes it patently clear he considers that to present a work which departs so much from Handel’s intention is an offence to both performers and audience. At this point he reveals his own agenda: he fears any record companies would be reluctant to bring the properly-produced version to the marketplace on the basis that Mr Martini’s version has already captured the market.

The London Handel Festival performed the 1707 version in 1997. On 30th April 1998 they performed Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verita in the 1737 version in St George’s with Emma Kirby as Belezza, Jeni Bern as Piacere, Catherine Denley as Disinganno and Robin Blaze as Tempo. The following year on 17th April they performed the 1757 Triumph of Time and Truth in the English version complete with Emma Kirkby as Beauty, Joanne Lunn as Deceit, Catherine Denley as Counsel, Ian Partridge as Pleasure and James Rutherford as Time. Paul Nicholson conducted the piece. The 1757 version, The Triumph of Time and Truth was recorded by Hyperion on CDA66071/2 at St Jude-on-the-Hill Hampstead London featuring Gillian Fisher as Beauty, Emma Kirkby as Deceit, Counsel or Truth by Charles Brett, Pleasure by Ian Partridge, and Time by Stephen Varcoe conducted by Denys Darlow. 

Mr Martini wrote to Early Music Review in response to Mr Hicks’ article, pleading artistic licence to follow what he calls traditional ways of performing Handel’s oratorios and mentioning discussions with several Handel luminaries. In his rather rambling reply, he offers little evidence but only mentions the names of several people he had conversations with. In reply Mr Hicks outlined at some length the scholarly approach that he himself applied in providing performing scores for these three works. The notes in the London Handel Festival Programmes in 1997, 1998 and 1999 are models of clarity, describing the research Mr Hicks carried out to produce the performing scores for the Festival. The only relevant further contribution from Mr Hicks concerns Mr Martini’s insistence that Handel used amateur choirs in his oratorios. This is patently incorrect. Handel only used professional singers in his choirs.

The question for lovers of Handel’s music is whether we prefer to hear a work as we believe Handel intended or whether an artistic director has the right to create an anachronistic compilation edition at will. The choice is between Mr Hicks’ precise scholarship versus Mr Martini’s cavalier pursuit of his own musical instincts. I have no doubt which path I prefer.

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Italian Poets of the Renaissance as inspiration for Baroque Opera Composers

By Mark Windisch

Handel composed about 40 operas covering a very wide range of topics, using librettists for the text from a variety of backgrounds to help him. Some operas like Il Pastor Fido and Atalanta are pastoral subjects, some deal with historical characters with which we are familiar, like Riccardo Primo, Giulio Cesare, Xerxes, Tamerlano and Alexander. In this article I should like to take a closer look at the “magic” operas which usually rely on exceptional poets who lived in Italy during the Renaissance. In particular we owe a debt to Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso.


Handel, newly arrived in London in late 1710 was offered an opportunity to stage an opera by Aaron Hill, a dramatist who had recently been appointed to run the King’s Theatre Haymarket. Hill saw opera as the means to further his ambition to make a success of the theatre. He came up with the idea of using the story of Rinaldo and Armida and chose Giacomo Rossi (fl 1710-31) to compose the libretto. The plot laid out by Hill took Torquato Tasso’s famous poem Gerusalemme Liberata but added the love interest between Argante and Armida and inserted the additional character of Almirena. The ending in which the Muslims converted to Christianity was not part of the original.


For Handel it was a wonderful opportunity. He had brought with him to England a collection of pieces already composed for other occasions. Sometimes they were not in any way apt to the plot, but their spectacular impact, delivered mostly by the famous castrato Nicolini (Nicola Grimaldi) and other top singers accompanied by some interesting orchestral effects, ensured that Rinaldo was an instant success. It ran for 33 performances and was revived several times. The novelty of Italian opera presented in London no doubt contributed to the opera’s appeal, but its success was ensured by Hill’s intervention as producer. His choice of Handel to choose the music around which Hill and Rossi then fitted the plot was one masterstroke, but also the extraordinary stage effects which included fire-breathing dragons, live birds, moving mountains and waterfalls, must have been a revelation to London audiences.


Although the music might not always have been appropriate to the subject it illustrated, Handel produced some stunning pieces. The character of Armida has the best arias with “Furie Terribile” and “Vo far Guerra”. Rinaldo has eight arias including “Cara sposa” and the spectacular “Venti turbini”.


Tasso’s poem was very successful in its own right and went on to be the inspiration to many people besides Handel. Operas and cantatas were written by others such as Albinoni, Jommelli, Salieri, Gluck, Myslivecek, Sacchini, Haydn, Sarti, Rossini, Donizetti, Brahms, Dvorak and even Judith Weir (2005). Plays and paintings were also inspired by this poem.
Handel clearly used this opportunity as a learning experience. It not only brought his talents to a wide audience but also put his music in print for the first time. (Walsh is said to have cleared £1500 by printing songs from Rinaldo.) He also got to meet J J Heidegger who introduced him to several influential people which greatly helped his career in London.
Moving forward more than 20 years, Handel’s next venture into a magic opera came in January 1733 with Orlando. Once again, there might have been some link with Aaron Hill and Heidegger for the choice of subject.


Ludovico Ariosto published his vast narrative poem Orlando Furioso (Raging Orlando) in 1532 although a partially complete version appeared 1516. Ariosto followed an earlier poet, Matteo Maria Boiardo who published a romance Orlando Innamorato (Orlando in love), and that in turn was inspired by Chanson de Roland, published in France in the 11th century.
Ariosto’s book is published in translation in two large paperbacks by Penguin, which gives an idea of its scale. The background is the war between Charlemagne’s Christian paladins against Saracen armies under Agramante, which are threatening to overthrow the Christian Empire. In the story, Orlando, a Christian knight is obsessed with the pagan princess, Angelica. A sub plot is the love between Bradamante, a Christian warrior and the Saracen, Ruggiero. Medoro, a wounded Saracen knight is healed and saved by Angelica and elopes with her.


The unhinged Orlando is assisted by another knight and they fly up to the moon (where all things lost are supposed to be stored) on a flying horse where they find Orlando’s lost wits which are then restored to him.


Handelians will recognise some of the characters and situations in Handel’s Orlando. The knight is central to the story, but we also have Angelica and Medoro. Handel introduced two more characters, Zoroastro and Dorinda. He uses the characters to build a story of power, love, and jealousy. He concentrates on the mania from which Orlando suffers, rendering him unable to reconcile his instincts as a warrior with his obsession with Angelica. The character of Zoroastro is a sort of primitive psychiatrist-cum-magician which offers an opportunity for introducing spectacular stage effects. Dorinda is the only solidly grounded character, offering an interesting contrast.


In the opera Handel breathes life into the characters by giving them music appropriate to their thoughts as opposed to their actions. He produces some astonishing arias for Zoroastro, far more convincing in my opinion than that written by Mozart for a similar character in The Magic Flute. Orlando is a deeply damaged character. He first is portrayed as a staunchly heroic character; at the sight of Angelica he is overcome by passion. By Act II overwhelming jealousy is invoked when he realises that Angelica is in love with Medoro. His is aria reflects the resultant disintegration of his mental state. In Act III the confused state of his mind comes through clearly in the music Handel has written for him to sing, especially in his duet with Angelica. Dorinda the shepherdess has several remarkable arias including her reflective soliloquy after the quite frightening encounter with Orlando at his most deranged.


This extended poem by Ariosto became very influential and had many followers including Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queen, Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, Lope de Vega, Cervantes in Don Quixote, Borges and even Salman Rushdie in The Enchantress of Florence.


As to musical compositions, besides forming the storyline of Handel’s Orlando, Ariosto was mined by Caccini, Agostino Steffani, Vivaldi, Lully, Rameau, Hasse and many others. Many artists including Delacroix also drew inspiration from Ariosto with his painting, Marphise.
In 1735 Handel was moved to use Ariosto’s poem again for Alcina. This was another instance of Handel and his producer needing a magic opera to display special effects. The libretto came to Handel via Riccardo Broschi, brother of the singer Farinelli and a composer himself. The characters are from the Ariosto but Broschi changed a few things. He added Oronte, retained Melissa but changed her into Melisso (a bass) and developed Bradamante and Morgana from their relatively minor roles in the poem.


Handel’s genius again was to imbue the characters with human feelings and reactions as opposed to Ariosto’s concentration on just producing a narrative. Alcina, for all her magic powers, is a mature woman needing to love and be loved. Finally, when she cannot find this love, her character disintegrates and her powers are lost. The child, Oberto shows considerable feeling for his father who has been transformed into a lion by Alcina. Ruggiero starts as a puppet figure controlled by his passion for Alcina, but as he realises that Ricciardo is really his beloved Bradamante in disguise, he rejects Alcina. His status as a warrior and hero is then reflected in his music.


I wonder what the famous authors of the poems which inspired Handel and his librettists would have thought of the way their creations came to life in the Baroque opera form. Even the earliest operas, which were little more that recitals with music, did not take place until 1597. Monteverdi, who can be said perhaps to be the first composer to produce an opera approximating to a modern format, only produced his first opera Orfeo in 1607.
Handel was very versatile and flexible in his approach and magic operas form only a very small part of his huge output of Italian opera. All were well received and allowed him to produce some of his most memorable music.

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Portrait of Handel by Denner

Mark Windisch

Portrait of Handel by Denner

This portrait of Handel by Balthasar Denner (1685-1749) hangs in the German Historical Museum in Unter den Linden in Berlin. Readers will have noted that the dates in German are correct, but the English translation gives a birth year 10 years later. This was pointed out to the Museum staff who were somewhat surprised by the error and the fact that no one had noticed it before!

Notice in museum about Denner's portrait of Handel. In the English translation Handel was born 10 years later!

The portrait was painted in 1709 when Handel was Kappelmeister to the Elector of Hannover and says incorrectly that Handel travelled with the Elector to London in 1714. He was already established in London when the Elector arrived there.
Balthasar Denner was born in Altona near Hamburg nine months after Handel. It is surmised that he knew Handel personally since they were both acquainted with Barthold Heinrich Brockes, famous for the Brockes Passion, and Denner was known to have an interest in music.

Denner stayed in London for six weeks in 1715 and had similar experiences to Handel, becoming friendly with several members of the English aristocracy who had invited him to England. He accordingly brought his family to London in 1721. Here he painted the more famous portrait of Handel in 1726-28 which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

Unfortunately Denner’s health began to deteriorate. He returned to Hamburg in 1728 and never visited England again.

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Richard Löwenherz: Telemann and Handel Compared

Mark Windisch

Telemann adapted three operas for the Hamburg theatre from those originally composed by Handel: Ottone, Poro and Riccardo Primo. The last of these, Handel’s version of which was performed on 11 November 1727 in The King’s Theatre, was performed in its adapted format by Telemann in Hamburg and Braunschweig in 1729. It is this version that was performed in the 2018 Telemann Festival in Magdeburg.

Handel’s libretto was written by Paolo Rolli from a text by Briani, and was used by German poet Gottlieb Wend for Telemann, to create a somewhat altered story for a very different audience and without the expensive stars that Handel was able to engage.

In Handel’s version, Richard (sung by Senesino, an alto castrato) had travelled to Cyprus on the way to join the third Crusade and to meet his prospective bride Costanza (soprano Francesca Cuzzoni). Shipwrecked in Cyprus, Richard had come up against the Cyprus Governor Isacio (bass Giuseppe Maria Boschi) and his daughter Pulcheria (soprano Faustina Bordoni). Two other characters featured: Oronte, prince of Syria (alto castrato Antonio Baldi) and Berardo (bass Giovanni Battista Palmerini).

In Telemann’s version as sung in Magdeburg in 2018, Richard was sung by a bass (the top castrati were unaffordable and might not have been culturally acceptable), changing the dynamic balance somewhat. Some of the other characters’ names were restored to the original ones in Briani, so that Costanza was listed as Berengera of Navarre, and a new character Philippus was introduced as her companion. Pulcheria, daughter of Isacio, came out as Formosa. The main change in characters was the introduction of two comic figures, Gelasius and Murmilla, both cross-dressers spending considerable time playing for laughs and scoring points off one another in spoken dialogue.

As to the music, Telemann largely used Handel’s arias sung in Italian; though in some cases, especially in arias for Richard himself, he composed new arias in German. All recitatives were in German (macaronic compositions were common in Hamburg – cf. Handel’s Almira composed during his earlier time there). The Isacio character, a tall imposing bearded figure in Magdeburg, was given some very florid arias which he found quite challenging. The interruptions to the flow of the story with the comic additions detracted somewhat from the performance. Other than that, I thought it hung together as a performance, with Telemann’s invention matching Handel’s well.

The story in Telemann’s version remained basically the same as in Handel’s. Richard and Berengera are madly in love despite never having met. Isacio tries to pass his daughter off as Berengera. This is so that he can marry the real Berengera and get Richard to marry his daughter for dynastic reasons. Oronte declares his love for Berengera but is overheard by Formosa, which leads to a lover’s tiff. Richard and Isacio face it off and for a while Isacio gets the upper hand, until Oronte rescues Richard and redeems himself. Good triumphs in the end: Richard and Pulcheria get married; Isacio is forgiven; Oronte and Formosa will rule Cyprus; and the cross-dressers are carted off in a wheelbarrow.