Richard Tang Yuk will conduct ‘Hercules’ for the American Handel Festival.
By: Susan Van Dongen
What kind of a creature is Hercules, the rarely performed work by George Frideric Handel? Scholars and musicians have often scratched their heads about Hercules. Is it an opera or an oratorio?
Richard Tang Yuk, Princeton University’s director of choral music, says it’s an "… opera disguised as an oratorio. Handel subtitled it ‘a musical drama,’ and he did this deliberately because he did not want to call it an opera or an oratorio.
"Technically it’s an opera in three acts, in the style of Italian opera," Mr. Tang Yuk continues. "The arias have an A-B-A form that’s more typical of Italian opera style than oratorio. But then, it’s in English. So why did he subtitle it? The reason has to do with the history of performance."
This question and many others concerning Handel’s music, ideas, personal life and times will be answered during the 2007 American Handel Festival and Meeting of the American Handel Society, to be held at Princeton University April 19 through 21. Hercules will be performed at Richardson Auditorium April 21, with soprano Deanne Meek in the role of Dejanira. Mr. Tang Yuk will conduct the University Glee Club, a chorus that plays a major role in the piece something else that makes Hercules stand out from Italian opera.
David Ross Hurley, professor of music at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kan., and editor of the forthcoming edition of Hercules for the Hallische Handel-Ausgabe, will give a talk preceding the performance about "The Characters in Handel’s ‘Hercules.’"
The festival will also feature a special exhibition of the James S. Hall collection of Handel manuscripts housed at the university’s Firestone Library, mounted by music librarian Paula Matthews.
The presence of this collection is one reason Mr. Tang Yuk believes the Handel Festival will be held at Princeton, the first time the biennial event will be here. In addition, late Princeton professor of music J. Merrill Knapp was one of the founders of the festival.
The AHS was launched in 1986 by Mr. Knapp and co-founders Howard Serwer and Paul Traver. It is governed by a board comprised of prominent American scholars specializing in the music of Handel and his contemporaries. The society wants to foster study of Handel’s life and works, as well as encourage the performance of his music two reasons for sponsoring the biennial festival. In addition, the society offers a fellowship in memory of Mr. Knapp, for advanced graduate students or scholars to support work in Handel studies or related fields.
"Princeton is a perfect place to have the festival," Mr. Tang Yuk says. "Scholars come from all around the country and the United Kingdom and I’m thrilled that they’ll come here. By coincidence, there have been a number of Handel’s operas performed in the region recently. Just in March, Westminster Opera Theater did ‘Oreste,’ for example."
Mr. Tang Yuk came to Princeton after Mr. Knapp had passed away. However, the university has at least one other renowned Handel expert professor Wendy Heller, who is on the board of the AHS.
"I suggested to Wendy to get the festival to come here," Mr. Tang Yuk says. "This has been in the works for maybe two years."
Further explaining exactly what kind of a piece of music Hercules is, Mr. Tang Yuk gives a little background about Handel’s thriving career in London. Writing for the Royal Academy of Music, he created some of his best operas and the company flourished for about eight years. However, the English audience began to grow tired of Italian opera, and the Academy suffered financial difficulties.
With a partner, Handel took over the theater in the dual role of composer and entrepreneur. A competing opera organization arrived The Opera of the Nobility featuring the highest priced singers in Europe. At the time, London could not support two companies, which so effectively divided the public that both groups practically went bankrupt.
"Later, between 1740 and 1742, Handel started performing English oratorios, which have the chorus in a much bigger role," Mr. Tang Yuk says. "In Italian operas the chorus only sings at the end of the scene, whereas in English oratorio the chorus takes a central role. Think of ‘Messiah’ for example. An oratorio is also economically viable, since there are no sets and it’s sung in English. With ‘Hercules,’ which was written in little over a month, Handel was trying to straddle both genres, opera and oratorio, and capitalizing on both audiences. But in my mind, it’s definitely an opera."
Hercules is rarely performed, Mr. Tang Yuk says, because no scholarly edition of the score exists.
"The score we had to use is incomplete and riddled with errors," Mr. Tang Yuk says. "This is why we need a new edition. I ordered the score and when it came I realized this and frantically searched for orchestra parts. It doesn’t even have horn parts, which Handel calls for in the work. We take for granted that when we want to do a piece (the score will be there), and we don’t realize that there will be errors.
"After speaking with several scholars, I found parts created by the conductor of Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco," he adds. "Working with various music software programs, he created these parts from scratch. So we’ve rented the score from them, but even (this) has a few errors. Until Ross Hurley finishes his scholarly edition, there isn’t very much out there. That’s why ‘Hercules’ is rarely performed."
In the score, Handel called for a soprano to sing the role of Dejanira, but Mr. Tang Yuk says a coloratura mezzo-soprano seems more appropriate.
"It’s written low and there’s a lot required in this role," he says. "Deanna seems to be doing more and more Handel works, but this piece is new to her. In fact, it’s new to everyone involved. The singers, soloists and musicians have never played it and everyone is very excited. It’s interesting that the soloists have been calling me and saying, ‘This is a fantastic piece, we can’t believe we didn’t know it.’ So we’re all discovering it together."
Some of the most excited participants are the members of the Princeton University Glee Club, whose previous experience with Handel was Messiah.
"This is the world’s most performed choral work, but it’s so atypical of Handel’s output," Mr. Tang Yuk says. "It doesn’t even come close to the dramatic intensity or range of expression in ‘Hercules.’
"When I first told them we would be doing ‘Hercules’ they weren’t so excited kids like romantic music," he continues. "But when we started working on it they got excited. This is the best part of teaching, getting the students hooked on this for life. They might not become professional musicians but they’ll get involved and they’ll know from the inside what it’s like to understand and perform music. This is important nurturing a life-long appreciation for the arts and for classical music."
Hercules by George Frideric Handel, conducted by Richard Tang Yuk, will be performed at Richardson Auditorium on the campus of Princeton University, April 21, 8 p.m. Pre-concert talk with David Ross Hurley, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $17-$48. (609) 258-5000; www.princeton.edu/utickets/. Other events in the 2007 American Handel Festival include ‘Britannia’s Invitation,’ performed by the Richardson Baroque Players at Richardson Auditorium, April 19, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $20-$30. Organ recital with Eric Plutz at the University Cathedral, Nassau Street and Washington Road, April 20, 6 p.m. Free. Handel Festival on the Web: silvertone.princeton.edu/handelfestival/

