Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Handel: Jephtha

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Jephtha was George Frideric Handel's last full-length composition. True, the secular oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth followed Jephtha in 1757, but that work was mainly pieced together from preexisting music. In 1752 it was a struggle for Handel to complete the score of Jephtha. His eyesight was giving out; soon he would go quite blind with cataracts. Handel's final essay in the oratorio genre is quite dark as well. It's a lyric tragedy, actually, taken from the Old Testament Book of Judges. Jephtha, the Israelite military hero, must sacrifice his daughter, Iphis, to the Lord as a consequence of his bargain with God for victory. The story has its parallels in the Greek legends about Idomeneus and Agamemnon. In Thomas Morell's libretto for Jephtha, Iphis's death sentence is commuted because of the 18th century public's demand for a happy ending. Jehovah shows His mercy and Handel gets to end the oratorio, as usual, with a rousing "Halleluyah!" chorus.

I have presented Jephtha once before, on Sunday, March 14, 1997, working from a CD reissue of a 1979 Decca/London recording. Neville Mariner led his own chamber orchestra, The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with an all-English lineup of choristers and vocal soloists. That British orchestral Academy is not a "period instrument" ensemble, but the Academy for Ancient Music of Berlin certainly is. In today's performance, Marcus Creed directs these "period" players, plus the RIAS Chamber Chorus, and a mostly British cast of solo singers. Jephtha was recorded in 1992 in co-production with Radio Berlin. Berlin Classics issued the oratorio on three compact discs in 1994.

If you enjoy listening to Jephtha on WWUH radio, why not go see and hear it performed live at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford this coming Saturday evening, November 8, 2014. The Hartt School's resident musicologist Ken Nott has prepared a new critical edition of Handel's score. Hartt's choral specialist, Edward Bolkovac, conducts the Hartt Collegium and Hartt Chamber Choir. Vocal soloists include the internationally acclaimed soprano, Julianne Baird, as Iphis. For more information visit the Hartt School Events Calendar.