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Yale Schola CantorumNicholas McGegan, guest conductorHandel: Samsonsunday, october 14, 2011 | 5 pm Woolsey Hall Scott Mello, Samson Megan Chartrand, Delilah free; no tickets required. presented with support from Yale School of Music |
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PROGRAM NOTESEnglish oratorio—the cornerstone of British musical identity in the 18th century—was in fact developed and popularized by a German composer who had built his reputation on Italian opera. George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) emigrated to England in 1713, following several successful visits in which he introduced Italian opera to the British public. In 1719 he founded his own opera company, the Royal Academy of Music. Handel’s productions relied upon imported Italian singers, who sang in their native language. Italian opera seria, however, presented the composer with a string of difficulties. To begin with, it was very expensive to produce. Once Handel successfully mounted a production, he had to compete with other opera impresarios for patrons. Even a full house was not the end of the composer’s worries, for Puritans objected to Italian opera on aesthetic, ethical, and political grounds. When Handel suffered a severe bout of ill health in 1737, he found that he was no longer able to withstand the pressures of the opera world. English oratorio, a genre to which Handel had first contributed in 1718, quickly became his sole artistic focus. Handel’s oratorio style reflected his varied experience as a composer of opera seria, German Passions, and English masques. Oratorio, established as an Italian genre in the previous century, was described by the librettist for Samson as “a musical Drama, whose Subject must be Scriptural, and in which the Solemnity of Church-Musick is agreeably united with the most pleasing Airs of the Stage.” Oratorios were never incorporated into worship. Instead, they provided suitable entertainment for the faithful, who were encouraged to avoid the profanities of the common stage. Handel wrote largely on Old Testament subjects, but he also experimented more than once with mythical and poetic themes. In his oratorios, Handel gives the character roles to a handful of soloists. The chorus, however, is just as important—a significant difference between oratorio and opera seria. In Samson, the chorus fulfills two contrasting roles. At the opening of the oratorio, for example, the chorus speaks for the Philistine priests. In the next scene, the chorus becomes a group of Israelites. The chorus continues to switch sides throughout the oratorio, and at the end of Act II the choral singers actually simulate a conflict between the Philistines and Israelites. England already had a venerable tradition of choral singing, and Handel’s extensive use of the chorus endeared him to his public. Handel’s oratorios were sung in English, and few Italian singers could perform in that language. This had several implications for the composer, who had to write for and engage English singers instead. To begin with, English singers were usually not as accomplished as the Italian castrati and prima donnas. Handel assembled a cast of suitable soloists who appeared in many of his oratorios, but these men and women were generally known for their accomplishments on the legitimate stage, not for their musical prowess. Because of his singers’ vocal limitations, Handel wrote oratorio arias which were often less ornate and virtuosic than his opera arias, although he never sacrificed musical expressivity. The quality of English singers had one more important effect on oratorio staging: they were much less expensive than their Italian counterparts. The production of oratorios was a business venture, and Handel benefitted from every opportunity to cut costs. Handel’s use of English singers also had an important impact on the public reception of his oratorios. Musical stage entertainment with an English text and English singers appealed to the spirit of nationalism that pervaded Handel’s audience. British theatergoers were quick to read the oratorios as allegorical works, and they appreciated them both as expressions of Christian spirituality and as incisive political commentary. The fact that oratorio was unstaged accounted for much of its success in England. The absence of scenery and costumes cut down on the cost of oratorio production. Even in the face of Handel’s genius, we cannot ignore the financial considerations which molded his artistic output. However, the Church of England had a much greater influence on Handel’s success with oratorio. The Lord Chamberlain had limited theatrical entertainment during Lent, which meant that opera could hardly turn a profit. Oratorio, on the other hand, was approved for performance because of its subject matter and unstaged presentation style. Handel was able to secure theaters at a reduced rate (they would otherwise remain dark), and he simultaneously enjoyed a monopoly on Lenten audiences. Oratorio attracted audiences even when alternative entertainment was available. It appealed to the British public, who became increasingly conservative in the mid-18th century. Some felt that religious texts had no place in the theater, but most were satisfied with Handel’s treatment of sacred subject matter. Handel’s audiences were enthralled with the cult of the sublime, an 18th century aesthetic movement which sought to reform the arts and place them on a sound foundation of religion and reason. Reformers sought not to eliminate entertainment, but to transform diversion into devotion. Handel’s oratorios suited this agenda perfectly. Samson, composed on the heels of Messiah in 1741, is highly representative of Handel’s oratorio output. The 1743 Covent Garden oratorio season is remembered for the London premiere of Messiah, but it was Samson that accounted for most of the performances. The story is drawn from the Old Testament, but the text is a poetic drama instead of a biblical excerpt. (Messiah is one of only two oratorios by Handel to set a Biblical text.) The libretto for Samson was prepared by an amateur librettist, Newburgh Hamilton, who made his living as steward to the third Earl of Stafford. Hamilton’s libretto is a free adaptation of John Milton’s play Samson Agonistes, to which he added arias and choruses derived from other poems by Milton. The play had a powerful effect on Handel, who heard it read aloud in 1739. A witness reports that Handel, who sat at the keyboard during the reading, “played I think better than ever, & his harmony was perfectly adapted to the sublimity of the poem.” In Handel’s original score, Samson concludes with a somber elegy for the title character, “Glorious Hero.” Before the first performance, however, Handel added a final aria (“Let the bright seraphim”) and chorus (“Let their celestial concerts all unite”) which conclude the oratorio in a more cheerful mood. The first performances of Samson featured an unusually large number of soloists: three sopranos, an alto, two tenors, and two basses. Handel later revised the score so that the oratorio could be performed with a standard cast of four soloists. The extraordinary length of Samson in its unabridged form (three and a quarter hours) can be attributed to the abundance of soloists, each of whom required arias. The oratorio would have been further expanded by Handel’s own performance of an organ concerto between the acts, a practice which characterized all of his mature oratorio presentations. Samson is usually abbreviated in modern performances. Handel himself provided the scheme for abbreviation, which he used in subsequent London seasons. The performance given today closely represents most of those given by Handel in the 18th century. The singers for whom Handel wrote Samson represented a variety of nationalities and performance backgrounds. When the oratorio was premiered at Covent Garden on February 18, 1743, Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Cibber, two London actresses, took the roles of Dalila and Micah. The smaller roles of a Philistine woman and an Israelite woman were performed by Miss Edwards, a young protégée of Mrs. Clive’s, and Signora Avolio, a soprano from the Italian opera stage. The title role was performed by the English tenor John Beard, who had a long and fruitful relationship with Handel. Another young English singer who hailed from the church choir tradition, William Savage, took the role of Manoa, while Harapha was performed by the German bass Henry Reingold. The cast was rounded out by another English tenor, Thomas Lowe, who sang the minor role of a Philistine. The oratorio begins after Samson has been betrayed by Dalila. Blinded and in chains, he is a prisoner of the pagans. In the first act, Samson’s friend, Micah, and father, Manoa, both lament his fate and try to comfort him. In the second Act, Dalila tries to win back Samson’s affection without success, while the Philistine champion, Harapha, scorns Samson’s challenge for combat. In the final act, Samson regains his strength and pulls down the building upon a pagan festival, thereby exacting revenge upon the Philistines. As is typical of the oratorio style, we do not “witness” this final climactic event. Instead, we hear the agonized cries of the Philistines from afar and only later learn about Samson’s heroic demise from a messenger.
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