Tag: Author: Tony Watts

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Handel in Cambridge

By Tony Watts

In 1733 Handel visited Oxford at the invitation of its University’s ViceChancellor. Although Handel was reported as not accepting a doctorate offered to him, it was a great occasion, attended by many Heads of Houses from Cambridge, and included the first performance of his new oratorio, Athalia in the Sheldonian Theatre. So far as we know, Handel never visited Cambridge. But it was reported that he refused a doctorate here too (though no documented evidence of either offer exists), and he had other contacts with Cambridge: for example, Thomas Morell, one of his main librettists, was a Fellow of King’s. But subsequently, Cambridge has made a huge contribution to both Handel scholarship and Handel performance, at least comparable to that of Oxford. The Cambridge Handel Opera Company (CHOC) is part of that tradition.

The collection of Handel autographs in the Fitzwilliam Museum is second in importance only to the Royal Collection in the British Library. Handel was the great hero of the Museum’s founder, Viscount Fitzwilliam, who acquired all the material that had not been bound and presented to King George III. This comprised over 500 leaves of complete, incomplete and uncompleted works, fragments and sketches, written between about 1708 and Handel’s death – now bound in 15 volumes. This collection has subsequently been extended, notably by Francis Barrett Lennard’s gift in 1902 of 67 volumes of early copies of Handel’s scores. In addition, the Fitzwilliam holds the terracotta model of Roubiliac’s famous statue of Handel erected during Handel’s lifetime in the Vauxhall Gardens: public statues of living individuals other than monarchs were rare in England at that time, and the informality of Handel’s attire and pose are strikingly realistic.

There are also important Handel collections in several College libraries. In particular the Rowe Music Library in King’s contains a substantial collection of both contemporary manuscript sources and of 19th century copies assembled by A.H. Mann (1850- 1929), and its Rowe Collection is even richer in first editions of Handel’s music. In addition, the Wren Library in Trinity houses several scores of Handel’s English oratorios which were edited and/or published in Cambridge in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The first biography of Handel – published in 1760, a year after the composer’s death – was written by John Mainwaring (c.1724-1807), a graduate and Fellow of St John’s. A later biography was written by Edward Dent (1876- 1957), a Fellow of King’s and Professor of Music. Dent was also responsible for bringing to Cambridge a number of eminent musicians to escape Nazi persecution, including the great scholar Otto Erich Deutsch (1883-1967), cataloguer of Schubert’s compositions: while in Cambridge (1939-51) Deutsch collected material for his Handel: A Documentary Biography (1955), which served for decades as the ‘bible’ of Handel biography and was the precursor to Handel: Collected Documents. The most substantial work on Handel’s music, the monumental three volumes on his operas and oratorios, was by Winton Dean (1916-2013), a graduate of King’s: his work is widely recognised as seminal in musicology as a whole, a benchmark for analytical and perceptive scholarship, based on comprehensive and strongly contextualised documentary research.

Christopher Hogwood (1941-2014), a graduate and Honorary Fellow of Pembroke and also an Honorary Fellow of Jesus, was a leading figure in the early-music revival of the late 20th century, wrote yet another biography of Handel, and was involved in several concert performances and recordings of Handel operas and oratorios by the Cambridge-based Academy of Ancient Music, of which he was the founder. More recently, Andrew Jones, a Fellow of Selwyn, was founder and conductor of the Cambridge Handel Opera Group (see below), and is currently preparing an edition of Handel’s continuo cantatas; and Ruth Smith, an independent Cambridge-based Handel scholar, is author of Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought and of many essays in programmes for Handel productions both in the UK and internationally.

Many of the most important books on Handel have been published by Cambridge University Press. These include the five volumes of Handel: Collected Documents, The Cambridge Companion to Handel, The Cambridge Handel Encyclopaedia, and several monographs.

Only one performance of Handel’s works is recorded as taking place in Cambridge during his lifetime: Acis and Galatea at Trinity in February 1756, conducted by John Randall, Professor of Music in the University. Randall subsequently performed Messiah in the Senate House a month after Handel’s death, in May 1759, following this over the next few years with a series of other Handel oratorios in the same location: a number of these were designed to raise funds for the new Addenbrooke’s Hospital (echoing the role famously played by Handel’s own performances of Messiah in fund-raising for the Foundling Hospital in London). Between 1789 and 1809 The Musical Society at the Black Bear Inn in Market Street was almost a Handel Society, an average of three out of eight items at their monthly concerts being devoted to Handel. The first performance in England of Mozart’s arrangement of Alexander’s Feast was given in the Senate House in 1819; and the first revival in England of Semele in the Guildhall in 1878, under Sir Charles Stanford.

A particularly significant series of Cambridge productions was the staged performances of Handel’s oratorios between 1925 and 1948, following the powerful movement in Germany to stage these works – which, though highly dramatic, were not designed by Handel for staged performance. The stage première of Semele was mounted in 1925 by Dennis Arundell, a Fellow of St John’s: a reviewer noted that the artists included two Borzoi dogs, a fantail pigeon, and two goats, which “appeared to require a little more stage experience”. This was followed by staged performances of Samson, Jephtha, The Choice of Hercules, Susanna, Saul and Solomon, some at the Guildhall and others on the back lawn of King’s. They were conducted by Cyril Rootham of St John’s and later by Boris Ord of King’s, with staging by Camille Prior, and costumes and sets by Gwen Raverat – all famous Cambridge figures. The 1935 performances were part of a substantial Cambridge Handel Festival.

In the 1980s Andrew Jones founded the Cambridge Handel Opera Group (CHOG). Its first production, Rodelinda (1985), was followed by 14 further productions of Handel operas, every two years, usually with four performances, at West Road Concert Hall. A distinctive aim of these productions was to observe principles of 18th century performance practice in visual as well as musical respects. They were always in English, with new translations by Andrew Jones that were often used elsewhere, notably at the Coliseum in London. They were accompanied by a Study Afternoon on the opera being performed, with presentations by Handel scholars and, usually, the Stage Director.

Alongside CHOG, there have been other recent staged Handel productions in Cambridge, including by Colleges, like Xerxes at Fitzwilliam (2007), and by Cambridge University Opera Society, like Jephtha (2015). Particularly notable have been productions by English Touring Opera, of which there were at least ten in Cambridge between 2007 and 2014 at the Arts Theatre and West Road, many produced by James Conway.

CHOG ended in 2013, but King’s graduate Julian Perkins has subsequently revived it as CHOC. Its first production was Rodelinda (2018) at The Leys; Tamerlano is its second. CHOC reaffirms the staging principles which underpinned CHOG’s work, and has also sustained the tradition of the Study Afternoon, now extended by the “Green Room” online seminars, again linked to the production – both curated by Ruth Smith. CHOC’s production values, and its commitment to promoting relevant scholarship alongside its productions, give it a unique position in the world of Handel performance. It has also mounted a concert performance of John Eccles’s Semele in Trinity, recorded in a much-praised CD, in collaboration with the Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Early Music – bringing together the vibrant earlymusic scene in Cambridge. In all these respects, CHOC is building upon and extending a long, rich and widely influential tradition.

The CHOC production of Tamerlano will be staged in Cambridge on 5, 6, 8 and 9 April. Tickets are available from Cambridge Live: https://www.cambridgelive.org.uk/tickets/events/cambridge-handel-operacompany-presents-handels-tamerlano

Meanwhile, CHOC is holding three online ‘Handel’s Green Room’ discussions in February/March, curated by Ruth Smith, on preparations for the Tamerlano production. For details, and to subscribe to CHOC’s News Bulletin, see: https://cambridgehandel.org.uk/

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Handel and Crime Fiction: an Interview with Donna Leon

Tony Watts

Donna Leon is a very successful crime novelist. Her series of 27 crime novels are set in Venice, featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. They have been translated into 35 languages and also, in Germany, into a well-known television series. She has been named by The Times as one of the 50 Greatest Crime Writers. But Handel operas have also played an important part in her life.

She was born in Montclair, New Jersey, USA in 1942. She taught English literature in various countries, including China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Her PhD on Jane Austen (still her favourite novelist) was aborted when she had to leave Iran hurriedly in the revolution of 1978/79, losing all her papers. In retrospect she feels it was a merciful release: ‘I was free from Graduate School – praise the Lord!’

In 1968 she visited Italy for the first time, fell in love with the country, and decided to live in Venice. She started writing her crime novels there when she was 50, and fairly soon became sufficiently successful to give up her teaching. She now only teaches once a year, at a music festival at Ernen in Switzerland. She moved to Switzerland in 2015, with two residences, in Zurich and in the mountains, though she still returns to Venice for around a week per month. She claims that her fame is accidental: ‘I’m irresponsible: I’ve never had any ambition to be successful or well-known.’ Her writing started ‘as a joke – pure dumb luck!’ She has resisted her novels being translated into Italian, to avoid celebrity there.

Her transformative induction into Handel was a performance of Alcina at Carnegie Hall in New York in the 1970s: ‘it was different from any opera I had experienced in my life, and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the music’. Thereafter, she listened to lots of recordings of Handel operas, and went to performances when she could. Now, she experiences them almost exclusively in live rehearsals and performances. She particularly pursues Handel operas and recitals featuring her favourite singers, notably Anna Bonitatibus, Joyce DiDonato, Ann Hallenberg and Inga Kalna. Her favourite Handel works are Alcina and Giulio Cesare, with Il Trionfo, Semele and Rodelinda in contention.

For her, Handel is the pre-eminent composer. She likes other baroque composers, including Telemann, Vinci, Porpora, Cavalli and Purcell. Mozart and Bach are also ‘part of the pantheon’, and she goes to operas by Donizetti, Rossini with great delight. But for her, Handel is distinctive: ‘the plots are not important, but what matters is people’s feelings, how they express them in the arias, and how they learn. And how they forgive: I love him because he’s compassionate, and the music is compassionate.’ There are not many people in Handel operas who are wholly bad. The same is true in Donna Leon’s books: ‘I don’t think there are many people who are wholly bad. Usually they become heads of state’ (we agreed not to mention any names).

Also, Handel ‘understands the plight of women: women are toys to most operatic composers, but not to Handel: he takes them very seriously’. In this sense, ‘he’s Trollope and all the others are Dickens: Dickens will teach anyone how to write a novel, but he doesn’t know anything about women’.

A further transformational moment was a serendipitous meeting with Alan Curtis at a dinner party in Venice: ‘One of us said “Handel’s the greatest composer”, and the other said “By God he is!” And that was it: we married one another (figuratively) at that instant!’ A little later, Alan Curtis happened to be at dinner at her place when the phone rang. It was Dino Arici from the Solothurm Festival in Switzerland, wondering whether to include a baroque opera in his next festival and ‘whether there was a baroque opera that hasn’t been done much. So I asked Alan and he said “Arminio”. And I said “Alan can probably bring it”. So we took Arminio to Solothurm, and we had so much fun, that it took off.’

She supported Alan Curtis in sustaining Il Complesso Barocco, leading to its series of Handel CDs. The group ended with Alan Curtis’s death in 2015. But she continues to provide similar support to Il Pomo d’Oro, of which she is one of three founders. In addition to financial support, she likes to make suggestions, particularly on possible singers, though she leaves it to the musicians to make the decisions on such matters. ‘I’ve known some of the musicians for 20 years: they’re like my kids’. She is a doer, ‘but I avoid any responsibility about anything: I don’t like the idea that I might influence people’s lives in a bad way – that frightens me’. There are plans to record Agrippina, and she would also like to do Semele and Il Trionfo. Given the finances of the music world today, ‘to record an opera by Handel is an act of folly, but it is also an act of love – to the orchestra, to the singers, and to the people who like the music enough to try a new version; and I think it should be done’.

A major project with Alan Curtis was her book Handel’s Bestiary, published in 2010/11 in English, French, German and Spanish. He selected 12 simile arias from Handel’s operas that made reference to animals, and she wrote short essays about each of the animals, drawn from history and mythology. They were illustrated by Michael Sowa, with an accompanying CD of the arias performed by Il Complesso Barocco. She is currently doing a series of Bestiary concerts, with readings linked to the music.

Her novels include some operatic elements. Two are located at La Fenice in Venice: Death at La Fenice and Falling in Love. All include an inscription drawn from operas. The first 15 were from Mozart, because the Da Ponte librettos are ‘wonderful texts’. But the subsequent ones have all been from Handel. The latest novel also draws from a Handel text in its title: Unto Us a Son is Given.

Living so long in Italy, she has realised that ‘Italians and Handel don’t go together. They don’t like baroque music, and don’t play it much. The giant paradox is that many of the great baroque orchestras and conductors are Italian, but where do they work: in England, France and Germany. But if you live in a country that has given the world Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini, why would you go and listen to this German?’

She does not have strong views on staging: ‘I don’t care – it’s not important to me. I can always close my eyes, and listen to beautiful singing. I go to the opera to listen. I’m much more aural than visual. And visual judgement is far more subjective than aural judgement. We’re in 2019, so people have to take chances.’

Donna Leon loves Handel, but does she identify with Handel in some ways? After all, both are voluntary exiles. And both have lived their lives as single people, yet have such a deep understanding of family relationships: many of Handel’s most moving duets are filial (usually mother-son or father-daughter), and an important feature of the Brunetti books is his relationship with his wife and children. She rejects the suggestion: ‘He’s fat, I’m thin; he’s a boy, I’m a girl.’

Whereas nearly all Handel’s operas have a happy ending, this is not true of any of Donna Leon’s novels. ‘My vision of life is very bleak. I’m a very happy person, and my life in many ways couldn’t be improved. I can do what I want, and I have a lot of people who I love, and who love me. But I’m no fool: people can be very unpleasant and nasty. And they’re crime books, after all.’ Nonetheless, she does not reject Handel’s lieto fine: ‘that was the convention, and what’s good enough for Handel is good enough for me’.