Alessandro (opera)

The King's Theatre, London, where Alessandro had its first performance

The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera Rinaldo. A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. In 1719, Handel was appointed music director of an organisation called the Royal Academy of Music (unconnected with the present day London conservatoire), a company under royal charter to produce Italian operas in London. Handel was not only to compose operas for the company but hire the star singers, supervise the orchestra and musicians, and adapt operas from Italy for London performance.[4][5]

Handel had composed numerous Italian operas for the Academy, with varying degrees of success; some were enormously popular. In February 1726 Handel revived his Ottone, which had been spectacularly successful at its first performances in 1723 and was again a hit at its revival, with a London newspaper reporting

Handel had the satisfaction of seeing an Old Opera of his not only fill the House, which had not been done for some time, but above three hundred turn'd away for want of room.[2]

Francesca Cuzzoni, who created the role of Lisaura

As the newspaper notes, full houses were by no means a regular occurrence by that time, and the directors of the Royal Academy of Music decided to increase audiences' interest by bringing another celebrated international opera star, Italian soprano Faustina Bordoni, to join established London favourites Francesca Cuzzoni and the star castrato Senesino in the company's performances. Many opera companies in Italy featured two leading ladies in one opera and Faustina (as she was known) and Cuzzoni had appeared together in opera performances in various European cities with no trouble; there is no indication that there was any bad feeling or ill-will between the two of them prior to their London joint appearances.[2][6]

The three stars, Bordoni, Cuzzoni and Senesino commanded astronomical fees, making much more money from the opera seasons than Handel did.[7] The opera company would have been aware that the story of the two princesses in love with Alexander the Great chosen for the two prima donnas' first joint appearance was familiar to London audiences through a tragedy by Nathaniel Lee, The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great, first performed in 1677 and often revived and it may be that they were encouraging the idea that the two singers were rivals.[6] One of the agents who had arranged Faustina's appearances in London, Owen Swiny, explicitly warned against the choice of libretto as likely to cause "disorder" in a letter to the directors of the Royal Academy of Music, imploring them:

never to consent to any thing that can put the Academy into disorder, as it must, certainly, if what I hear ... is put in Execution: I mean the opera of Alexander the great; where there is to be a Struggle between the Rival Queen's, for a Superiority.[8]

The performances of Alessandro went off with no signs of animosity between Bordoni and Cuzzoni or their respective supporters, but it was not very long after that tension between the two erupted. As 18th century musicologist Charles Burney observed about the Cuzzoni / Faustina rivalry, which became acute around the time of the performances of a subsequent Handel opera, Admeto:

it seems impossible for two singers of equal merit to tread the stage a parte eguale, as for two people to ride on the same horse, without one being behind.[9]

The Royal Academy of Music collapsed at the end of the 1728/1729 season, partly due to the huge fees paid to the star singers, and Cuzzoni and Faustina both left London for engagements in continental Europe. Handel started a new opera company with a new prima donna, Anna Strada. One of Handel's librettists, Paolo Rolli, wrote in a letter (the original is in Italian) that Handel said that Strada "sings better than the two who have left us, because one of them (Faustina) never pleased him at all and he would like to forget the other (Cuzzoni)."[10]

Place: Oxidraca, India

Time: Approx. 326 BC

Act 3

Caricature of Senesino, who created the role of Alessandro

General Leonato frees Clito from prison and throws Cleone in jail instead, but Cleone is also released by his supporters. The conspirators are now resolved to wage open warfare against their former leader, Alessandro, leading large parts of his army in a mutiny. Cleone is aware of this plot and informs Alessandro.

Alessandro, having decided to take Rossane as wife, breaks the news gently to Princess Lisaura, explaining that he is not good enough for her and that King Tassile, his dearest friend, loves her and he must not stand in the way of Tassile making Lisaura his queen. Tassile is overjoyed.

The conspirators and the mutinous army launch into battle against Alessandro, but King Tassile supports him with his troops and the conspirators are defeated. They beg for mercy, which Alessandro generously grants. Alessandro will marry Rossane, Tassile will have Lisaura, all are forgiven and praise the great hero's magnanimity.[6][13]

After the overture, the opera begins with rousing battle music featuring trumpet and drums. Handel is very careful to give both leading ladies equal opportunities; they make their entrances simultaneously and they have an equal number of arias and one duet together.[14] Handel differentiates between the two princesses through his music; Lisaura is given melancholy and expressive music with a pensive and brooding quality, whereas the music for Rossane portrays her as scheming and spirited with some vocal writing of enormous virtuoso demands.[15] For Paul Henry Lang, Rossane's love music in act two as she waits for Alessandro is "Handel at his idylllic-pastoral best".[16]

The opera is scored for two recorders, two oboes, bassoon, two trumpets, two horns, strings and continuo (cello, double bass, lute, harpsichord).

Alessandro was a resounding success, with a run of thirteen performances, which would have been greater had Senesino not become indisposed necessitating cancellation of more.[15] Lady Sarah Cowper complained in a letter that it was difficult to get tickets.[17] Handel revived the work in his seasons of 1727 and 1732.[12] Horace Walpole recalled years later that at the performance he saw, during the opening scene depicting the siege of Oxidraca, Senesino "So far forgot himself in the heat of the conquest, as to stick his sword into one of the pasteboard stones of the wall of the town, and bore it in triumph before him."[17]

As with all Baroque opera seria, Alessandro went unperformed for many years, but with the revival of interest in Baroque music and historically informed musical performance since the 1960s,Alessandro, like all Handel operas, receives performances at festivals and opera houses today.[18] Among other performances, Alessandro was produced at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in 2012,[19] at the Palace of Versailles as part of the Versailles Festival in May and June 2013,[20] and at the Athens Festival also in 2013.[21]

Notes

Sources

• Burrows, Donald (2012). Handel. Master Musicians. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199737369.
• Dean, Winton (2006), Handel's Operas, 1726–1741, Boydell Press, ISBN 1-84383-268-2 The second of the two-volume definitive reference on the operas of Handel

• Italian libretto Archived 2011-06-05 at the Wayback Machine
• Score of Alessandro (ed. Friedrich Chrysander, Leipzig 1877)
• Alessandro: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project