Handel Opera, Alcina, the Enchantress.

[Treeplanter]

Handel's Alcina.
They recently played Handel's Alcina on the classical music station. It goes for a daunting 3 hours and I happened to listen to the last half of it as I was going to off to sleep. The next evening I listened to the first hour and a half on the internet. It is truly an alluring piece of music which seems to have such drive from start to finish. It is about Alcina, an enchantress. This is a rarely used word which is often wrongly used interchangeable with seductress but it is different. A seducertress depends on her charms while an enchantress depends on her charm and magic.
The first rehearsal took place at Handel’s own house on 11 April 1735. His neighbour, artist and letter writer Mary Pendarves, who was relatively famous was there and wrote: “I think it is the best he ever made… While Mr Handel was playing his part, I could not help thinking of him as a necromancer in the midst of his own enchantments”. Handel would have accompanies ad lib on the harpsichord.She used that obscure word necromancer which I had to look up which means, one who communicates with spirits to perhaps foretell the future or what even.
Handel's most famous work is probably Messiah which goes for about 2 and a half hours. He wrote this in an incredible 6 weeks. If you have seen the score, you couldn't even transcribe it in 6 weeks let alone compose it. At the time, he was asked how could he do such a thing? His answer was that, “Truly the doors of Heaven opened before me and I just wrote!”
The question I ask, is it possible that MaryP knew perhaps more about Handel than is commonly understood? Could it have been that the doors of Heaven opened just a little wider than is commonly thought to allow in from that world beyond an enchantress and her magic and here in the music, we have a glimpse of that world? Let the music speak for itself to those who have an open mind of what may be out there and how it can even touch us now. In the original performance, they even had some salacious dancing but the moralists objected and that came to an early end.
Unfortunately classic music is not appreciated by many so may I suggest as an introduction, a 4 minute aria from the opera, Tornami a vagheggiar which is easy to find on You Tube.
Amongst other things, MaryP was a famous botanical artist. She became acquainted with Joseph Banks, of Botany Bay fame in Sydney and the founding of Sydney and Australia.