We do not now think of Handel in connection with the opera. To the
modern mind he is so linked to the oratorio, of which he was the
father and the consummate master, that his operas are curiosities but
little known except to musical antiquaries. Yet some of the airs from
the Handel operas are still cherished by singers as among the most
beautiful songs known to the concert-stage.
In 1720 Handel was engaged by a party of noblemen, headed by his Grace
of Chandos, to compose operas for the Royal Academy of Music at the
Haymarket. An attempt had been made to put this institution on a firm
foundation by a subscription of £50,000, and it was opened on May 2nd
with a full company of singers engaged by Handel. In the course of
eight years twelve operas were produced in rapid succession:
"Floridante," December 9, 1721; "Ottone," January 12, 1723; "Flavio"
and "Giulio Cesare," 1723; "Tamerlano," 1724; "Rodelinda," 1725;
"Scipione," 1726; "Alessandro," 1726; "Admeto," 1727; "Siroe," 1728;
and "Tolommeo," 1728. They made as great a _furore_ among the musical
public of that day as would an opera from Gounod or Verdi in the
present. The principal airs were sung throughout the land, and
published as harpsichord pieces; for in these halcyon days of our
composers the whole atmosphere of the land was full of the flavour and
colour of Handel. Many of the melodies in these now forgotten operas
have been worked up by modern composers, and so have passed into
modern music unrecognised. It is a notorious fact that the celebrated
song, "Where the Bee sucks," by Dr. Arne, is taken from a movement in
"Rinaldo." Thus the new life of music is ever growing rich with the
dead leaves of the past. The most celebrated of these operas was
entitled "Otto." It was a work composed of one long string of
exquisite gems, like Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and Gounod's "Faust." Dr.
Pepusch, who had never quite forgiven Handel for superseding him as
the best organist in England, remarked of one of the airs, "That great
bear must have been inspired when he wrote that air." The celebrated
Madame Cuzzoni made her _début_ in it. On the second night the tickets
rose to four guineas each, and Cuzzoni received two thousand pounds
for the season.
The composer had already begun to be known for his irascible temper.
It is refreshing to learn that operatic singers of the day, however
whimsical and self-willed, were obliged to bend to the imperious
genius of this man. In a spirit of ill-timed revolt Cuzzoni declined
to sing an air. She had already given him trouble by her insolence and
freaks, which at times were unbearable. Handel at last exploded. He
flew at the wretched woman and shook her like a rat. "Ah! I always
knew you were a fery tevil," he cried, "and I shall now let you know
that I am Beelzebub, the prince of de tevils!" and, dragging her to
the open window, was just on the point of pitching her into the
street, when, in every sense of the word, she recanted. So, when
Carestini, the celebrated tenor, sent back an air, Handel was furious.
Rushing into the trembling Italian's house, he said, in his four- or
five-language style--"You tog! don't I know better as yourself vaat it
pest for you to sing? If you vill not sing all de song vaat I give
you, I vill not pay you ein stiver." Among the anecdotes told of
Handel's passion is one growing out of the composer's peculiar
sensitiveness to discords. The dissonance of the tuning-up period of
an orchestra is disagreeable to the most patient. Handel, being
peculiarly sensitive to this unfortunate necessity, always arranged
that it should take place before the audience assembled, so as to
prevent any sound of scraping or blowing. Unfortunately, on one
occasion, some wag got access to the orchestra where the ready-tuned
instruments were lying, and with diabolical dexterity put every string
and crook out of tune. Handel enters. All the bows are raised
together, and at the given beat all start off _con spirito_. The
effect was startling in the extreme. The unhappy _maestro_ rushes
madly from his place, kicks to pieces the first double-bass he sees,
and, seizing a kettle-drum, throws it violently at the leader of the
band. The effort sends his wig flying, and, rushing bareheaded to the
footlights, he stands a few moments amid the roars of the house,
snorting with rage and choking with passion. Like Burleigh's nod,
Handel's wig seemed to have been a sure guide to his temper. When
things went well, it had a certain complacent vibration; but when he
was out of humour, the wig indicated the fact in a very positive way.
The Princess of Wales was wont to blame her ladies for talking instead
of listening. "Hush, hush!" she would say. "Don't you see Handel's
wig?"
For several years after the subscription of the nobility had been
exhausted, our composer, having invested £10,000 of his own in the
Haymarket, produced operas with remarkable affluence, some of them
_pasticcio_ works, composed of all sorts of airs, in which the singers
could give their _bravura_ songs. These were "Lotario," 1729;
"Partenope," 1730; "Poro," 1731; "Ezio," 1732; "Sosarme," 1732;
"Orlando," 1733; "Ariadne," 1734; and also several minor works.
Handel's operatic career was not so much the outcome of his choice as
dictated to him by the necessity of time and circumstance. As time
went on, his operas lost public interest. The audiences dwindled, and
the overflowing houses of his earlier experience were replaced by
empty benches. This, however, made little difference with Handel's
royal patrons. The king and the Prince of Wales, with their respective
households, made it an express point to show their deep interest in
Handel's success. In illustration of this, an amusing anecdote is told
of the Earl of Chesterfield. During the performance of "Rinaldo" this
nobleman, then an equerry of the king, was met quietly retiring from
the theatre in the middle of the first act. Surprise being expressed
by a gentleman who met the earl, the latter said, "I don't wish to
disturb his Majesty's privacy."
Handel paid his singers in those days what were regarded as enormous
prices. Senisino and Carestini had each twelve hundred pounds, and
Cuzzoni two thousand, for the season. Towards the end of what may be
called the Handel season nearly all the singers and nobles forsook
him, and supported Farinelli, the greatest singer living, at the rival
house in Lincoln's Inn Fields.