Handel: Jephtha [Box set]

This is a Biblical oratorio that refers to a very sorry episode of the Old Testament. In just a few words, Jephtha goes to war in the name of Israel to liberate some area. He vows before leaving that he will put to death the first person who salutes him if he comes back triumphant. He so vows to put to death a member of his own community to thank his god for his victory, not an enemy like in Titus Andronicus. A member of his own community. Barbaric. And triumphant he is and his own daughter salutes him first. The plot sickens. But God in his great omnipotence saves the life of the daughter provided she dedicates her whole life and virginity to God himself, killing all possible love, particularly with her promised husband Hamor. He is a god of justice, maybe, of authority for sure, of obedience definitely, but of love certainly not.

But Handel transforms this hateful story into a marvellous opera thanks to his music and the singing. I defy you to find any distance between n him and the plot that he takes the way it comes without hinting anything negative about that god. So let's speak of the music.

The voices first. The mother Storgé is a mezzo-soprano and that's the perfect choice for her role. She is a permanent lamenter. She laments when the war is announced. She laments when the daughter is promised to a sacrifice. She event laments when the daughter is saved from death though not from virginity. She is a lamenting and weeping mother and a mezzo-soprano is just the perfect range for a woman to sing that role.

The alto is Hamor and not Jephtha and we understand why very fast. He is a perfect lover going to the war, wailing slightly and rejoicing with the promised fame, especially since his promised wife Iphis is exhilarated by the war and the excitement. He is also the perfect messenger who brings the news of the victory, ignorant he is of the danger that message conveys. Mercury could not have been better. He is also the perfect second grade scapegoat to pay for the dumbness of his father-in-law-to-be and who will never be. He can even rejoice in the survival of his paramour and the fact that he will become the son of her father. That's a good payment for his life of celibacy. And he can even sound joyful when he greets his for ever virginal ex-promised wife.

The fact that the father is a tenor takes him completely out of the hero position and he is not a hero, far from it. He is not even able to win a battle within the help of god.

Iphis on CD 3 track 15 reaches a tip top summit in singing: she sings her joy at being saved and at being able to offer her life, instead of sacrificing it, to her god. Her song of praise and joy little by little turns into a tenebrae and she ends up singing her own requiem, the requiem she deserves since she is going to be buried alive in the temple.

We could analyze every moment of each one of these voices to show how perfect they are for the plot and events. But let's shift to the music itself.

There is no surprise to have Handel's style all along. But his style is so creative that the whole oratorio is starred and spangled with myriads of small pleasurable gems from beginning to end. Let me give you a few.

Storgé on CD 1 track 5 is the perfect bird of bad omen, announcing the worst catastrophe though the war is not even started. She is able to express a level of dread and fright unimaginable and yet an absolute submissive attitude in front of that hellish situation, and she only knows about the war.

Hamor on CD 2 track 1 is reporting the victorious battle as if it were some innocent game in the playground of his school. It is so naïve, so childish in tone and in terms with angels fluttering over the battle field so that we can only admire the innocence of this poor man who is going to be deprived of his promised wife by the silliest vow possible from a grown man, his father-in-law-to-be. He is some kind of Mercury with the voice of Cupid, or is it Adonis before he starts being chased into dying under the tusks of a boar?

The symphony on CD 2 track 8 is the perfect shift from the battle field to the city where Iphis is waiting for her father with a choir of virgins. It is just dramatic enough, maybe ironical in a way, since we know about the vow. The next symphony on CD 3 track 4 bringing the angel on the stage to commute Iphis death penalty into virginal life imprisonment is also sublimely beautiful in that situation that should make people laugh but that is dramatic in a way because god is not better than Jephtha: a man can make a mistake but he will not be punished, his daughter and her paramour will. That's divine justice. The symphony is of course a beautiful piece to make this shift from drama one to drama two.

The instruments are systematically used as if they were voices and vice versa. But I would like to note the use of the flute on CD 2 track 4 when Iphis is rejoicing after the news of the victory of her father. I would also note the harpsichord on CD 2 track 10 when Jephtha realizes the big mistake he has committed, a mistake that amounts to a crime since an innocent human being is going to be sacrificed to pay for his promise. The harpsichord is the best cuckoo bird for the furious self-satisfied and submissive anger at no one in particular except maybe a little bit himself: even old monkeys can learn new tricks after all.

We have to say a few words on the language. Handel is one of the best English composers as for using the stressed nature of the language to support his music and to play the music. He is able to cut up a word just after the stressed syllable, have vocalizes on this stressed vowel and then go back a couple of words and go through. What's more his text is extremely well written. On CD 2 tracck 7 the chorus has first a direct parallel symmetrical line and then a chiastic inverted antagonistic symmetrical line: "In glory high, in might serene, / He sees, moves all, unmov'd, unseen." And on CD 2 again, track 12 he uses a ternary iambic parallel construction: "so fair, so chaste, so good". When you add the music these linguistic structures become diamonds in your ears.

An absolute must and we regret all the operas and oratorios by Handel are not ... yet? ... available.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

As a low brow opera follower this was a case of me attempting to run before I could walk. I am sure I will return to this CD in time.