Dall'ondo, from Giulio Cesare

An exact contemporary of Bach, George Frideric Handel has earned a weekend unto himself in this year’s Festival—Saturday and Sunday evening performances of Semele. More will be said about his life and works at that time. For the moment, we will concern ourselves with a single selected aria from another Handel opera, Giulio Cesare, written for the start of the 1724 London opera season. From the first performance it achieved great popular success, and apart from a period of oblivion during the 19th century (when nearly all Italian opera seria fell into disfavor), the work has remained a standard of the repertory. Some critics go so far as to rate it the finest Handelian opera, possibly the best of all works in the genre. Such praise typically derives from the libretto’s dramatic power and Handel’s skillful setting of the lead roles (Caesar and Cleopatra) for castrato and female soprano.
In the selection we hear from Act III, “Dall’ondo…Aure, deh, per pietà spirate,” Caesar has just escaped an assassination attempt, and he tells in accompanied recitative aria how he survived but also how he laments his lonely situation (how can the ruler of the world be alone?). Bereft for the moment of his comrades-in-arms, he dwells more poignantly on the absence of his beloved. Handel elaborates a basic da capo design (ABA) by adding an orchestral ritornello before the recitative (it usually comes after) and inserting touches of more recitative at the transition from section B back to A. The scene thus opens with the strings playing the primary theme; then comes a first recitative, after which the opening returns as accompaniment to Caesar’s aria “Aura, deh, per pieta.” The single harmonic wrinkle in the opening ritornello—a deceptive cadence from C to D-flat in the bass—recurs during the aria to paint the affect of “dolor” (pain). Handel lingers over the phrase for additional emphasis. Section B is based on the main theme of section A, though Handel uses it only in fits and starts. He soon interrupts any melodic flow by returning to a recitative texture, cadencing in B-flat major. Without return modulation Caesar rounds off the form with a verbatim repetition of section A in tonic.

(c) Jason Stell