Hercules (selections)

A highlight of this year’s Festival is the concert performance of Handel’s music drama, Hercules. Tonight we hear some excerpts; the full work will be performed on August 27. The libretto created by Thomas Broughton deals with the mythical death and apotheosis of Hercules. Deception and jealousy on the part of Queen Dejanira, his wife, play a pivotal role in the hero’s undoing. In the oldest source material, Sophocles’s Women of Trachis, we find only one deception: Dejanira sends a robe to her unfaithful husband in the belief that it will restore his love for her and cause him to forego the captive princess, Iole. The robe, in fact, has been poisoned by Nessus, a centaur who once tried to steal Dejanira away—it’s a long story!

In any case, the later evolution of the myth adds a second deception in addition to the robe: Dejanira also deceives herself about the relation between Iole and Hercules. In Sophocles’s tale, Iole draws Hercules to infidelity, and the parading of Iole as prisoner/concubine before Dejanira directly precipitates the hero’s death. But in both Ovid’s and Broughton’s libretto, Hercules has not wandered: he and Iole are innocent, a striking departure from Sophocles. The outcome—Hercules’ death—remains the same, of course, but the double deception increases the psychological complexity inherent in depicting Queen Dejanira.

We begin with the instrumental Sinfonia that launches Act 2. Act 1 had ended on a note of triumph and celebration at the homecoming of Hercules. The second act opens onto a more doleful scene, and this agitated G-minor Sinfonia prepares the mournful entrance of Iole. Next, we hear the first aria of Lichas, fateful messenger between Dejanira and Hercules. In “No longer, fate, relentless frown,” Lichas provides commentary on the Queen’s somber appearance at the start of the drama. She has had no word from her husband for many months, and “sad dejection” has begun to take over. Lichas voices a shared sentiment: Fates, preserve the hero one more time and bring him home. Of course, we realize only much later that Hercules’ greatest enemy now is his wife’s jealousy.

In “The god of battle,” we hear from the strongman himself: Hercules, son of almighty Zeus who marshals the stormcloud. Both composer and librettist paint the hero in simple and unreflective tones (at least until his death scene). Handel underscores his characterization by having Hercules sing predominantly in unison with the accompaniment, a strategy symbolic both of the hero’s powerful influence, as well as his lack of sophistication and independence. Where solo and accompaniment merge, as here, we suspect a degree of adolescent superficiality or bravura. Handel avoids all tinges of darkness in this aria, apart from a subtle evaded cadence which replaces consonance with dissonance—the faintest possible hint that not everything in Hercules’s retirement to “Dejanira’s fond embrace” will be so simple and sunny.

Later we will conclude the concert with three more numbers from Hercules. The closing set begins with “Banish love from thy breast,” Iole’s attempt to cool the passions of Hyllus, son of Hercules and Dejanira. Buried under grief for her dead father and vanquished homeland—all of which she owes, ironically, to the warring efforts of Hercules—Iole wants no part of Hyllus’s amorous suit. As if to add weight to her words, Handel duplicates much of the vocal line, especially the melismas on “banish” and “inspire,” in the violin.

The aria that follows immediately, Hyllus’s “From celestial seats descending,” reinforces the post-Sophoclean evolution of the myth. Where Hyllus originally felt nothing but disgust for Iole—whose transgression of sacred marriage precipitates the death of his father (though Hercules, too, is guilty on this point)—Ovid introduces an amorous confusion between the despondent son and vanquished princess. Their own marriage, ordained by prophecy, will heal the wound caused by Dejanira’s jealous error and Hercules’s death. To that end, Handel has Hyllus sing a moving siciliano on the powers of beauty: both beauty, in general, that causes gods and goddesses to cavort with mortals, but also the beauty of Iole, in particular, which redeems the hero’s pathetic demise. One nice detail is the downward chromatic inflection in the melody that accompanies the gods’ descent in quest of mortal love, that heaven on earth. The aria sounds a poignant keynote in what might otherwise be a distracting sideplot.

The union of Iole and Hyllus culminates in a love duet, “Oh prince, whose virtues all admire.” Handel writes graceful and bright music, and he seems careful not to cover duet passages with any accompaniment other than a bass pedal tone. What seems rather blithe on the surface grows more poignant in light of the situation: This curious marriage, between vanquished princess and son of the vanquisher, substitutes for an amorous reconciliation between Hercules and Dejanira, which is impossible now that the former lies atop his funeral pyre and the latter has perished in madness. This duet occurs late in the drama, just prior to the concluding chorus.

(c) Jason Stell