Academy of Ancient Music
HANDEL’S IMENEO
Argument and synopsis
THE ARGUMENT
HYMENEUS was a Youth of Athens, who fell in Love with a noble Damsel, without Hope of ever obtaining her; yet
he assiduously pursued her, and often found Means to be with her and other of her Companions, by dressing
himself in a female Dress, so that his Fraud could not be suspected. Thus it happen’d, that he, with his Beloved (and
many others, who went forth from Athens to a Sacrifice to Eleusinian Ceres) were forced away by some Pyrates,
who came on them by Surprize; and when they had got many Miles distant with ’em, rejoicing in their Prey,
and spent with Toil, went ashoar; and retiring to a Place where they thought themselves safe, lay down to sleep.
Hymeneus taking that Opportunity to deliver himself, and the captive Virgins, had the good Fortune to kill all
the Pyrates before any one would awake; and returning to the City, promis’d to restore to the Athenians their lost
Children, if they would give her, he so lov’d, to him for a Wife; which was granted, and the Nuptials performed; and
he liv’d happy with her the rest of his Life.
(1740 wordbook)
SYNOPSIS
The entire opera is set in a pleasant garden (‘Deliziosa’).
Act I
Athenian virgins sent to take part in the Eleusian rites in honour of Ceres have been captured by pirates. Tirinto
laments that his betrothed Rosmene is missing, and the senator Argenio worries about his daughter Clomiri;
they pray to Ceres for aid. The chorus announces that Imeneo is arriving with good news: disguised as a girl,
Imeneo single-handedly slew all the pirates in their sleep, rescued all the virgins and brought the ship home to
Athens. He claims Rosmene as his reward; Tirinto is appalled. Rosmene and Clomiri return, but the reunion causes
embarrassment to all four thwarted lovers: Rosmene does not love her ardent rescuer Imeneo, who is indifferent
to Clomiri (despite her unsuccessful hints that she adores him). Tirinto refuses to give up Rosmene, who gives noncommittal answers to the rivals. Left alone, Imeneo confidently expects that the wise men of Athens will award
him the ‘turtle fair’ he desires.
Act II
Torn between her betrothal to (and love for) Tirinto and gratitude to Imeneo, Rosmene prays to the gods for help.
Argenio tells her that reason dictates she ought to choose to marry Imeneo; he dismisses her love for Tirinto as
‘mere perverseness’, and instructs her on the rewards of obedience. Rosmene complains about the pains of love
HANDEL’S IMENEO 1
to Clomiri, who informs Tirinto about Rosmene’s distress; his pangs of jealousy are like a violent storm. Imeneo
tells Clomiri he is grateful to her father for pleading his cause with the senate; she assumes that Rosmene will be
delighted (having no idea that her rival loves Tirinto). Imeneo contemplates the agonies of love: he and Rosmene
are instructed that the senate cannot force their marriage, but that Rosmene must be free to choose. In a trio, both
suitors plead to her but she is torn between love and gratitude.
Act III
Tirinto and Imeneo insist that Rosmene choose between them. She says that pity for the loser holds her back, but
promises her decision will be dictated by her heart. Each of the men resolves to die if he loses. Clomiri tells Imeneo
that she loves him, but to no avail. Rosmene resolves to make her choice but feigns madness in order to spare
the feelings of the loser. First, she meets Imeneo, who is alarmed by her distraught manner; he begs her to kill
him if she destroys his peace. Next, she meets Tirinto, who reacts exactly the same way to her apparent madness.
Clomiri and Argenio lament Rosmene’s insanity, and she arrives to announce her decision to the rivals: she enacts
a trancelike journey to the underworld, where the judge of the dead Rhadamanthus cleaves her heart and releases
her soul; she collapses, emerges from her trance and pragmatically chooses Imeneo. She says her decision has
been as difficult as Paris choosing between the three goddesses, denies that she is raving, gives her hand to
Imeneo, and asks the silent Tirinto to accept rejection calmly. The chorus conclude sombrely that the virtuous
heart should always yield to reason.
INTRODUCING IMENEO
Dr David Vickers
After Handel’s first arrival in Britain in late 1710 he spent the next three decades cultivating a career composing
and performing Italian operas on the London stage, with only a few sporadic interruptions to his theatrical
activities, such as when management problems hindered the running of the Queen’s Theatre (renamed the
King’s Theatre upon the accession of George I to the throne in 1714), or if leading singers departed and suitable
continental replacements could not be recruited in time for the next season.
Handel’s entrepreneurial and artistic independence increased considerably during the 1730s, when he also began
to introduce English oratorios and other vernacular works into his seasons, but the consistency of opera-based
seasons was broken after the peak of his intense rivalry with short-lived competitors the Opera of the Nobility
(1733–7), which also culminated in his serious illness in summer 1737. Even before making a miraculous recovery,
it seems that Handel had accepted that his Covent Garden opera company could not afford to continue (and,
indeed, he had lost his leading Italian singers), so he returned to being a hired gun for the King’s Theatre’s 1737–8
season: he commanded a respectable fee for providing new operas and also received a slice of the takings from
a lucrative benefit oratorio concert. However, at the end of the season crucial Italian singers left London, thus
perpetuating uncertainty about how an opera company could operate.
Handel optimistically speculated that an operatic venture might be possible during the 1738–9 season. On 9
September 1738, in the middle of composing the oratorio Saul, he began drafting the new opera Imeneo. Its
libretto was modelled on a two-part componimento dramatico by Silvio Stampiglia based loosely on the legend
of Hymen (the Greek god of marriage) that had been first set to music by Porpora to celebrate an aristocratic
wedding at Naples in 1723. Handel’s setting of Imeneo had an unusually problematic long gestation period. The
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libretto was restructured into a three-act opera and Handel might have worked from a copy of Porpora’s score
rather than Stampiglia’s printed libretto (three numbers feature borrowings from Porpora’s settings of the same
texts). He dated the completion of his first rough draft on 20 September, but during his sketching of Act III he was
visited on 18 September by the Saul librettist Charles Jennens, who prompted Handel to make heavy revisions
to the oratorio (which he completed fully on 27 September). The overlap between the composition of the epic
Biblical music drama and the initial draft of Imeneo meant that the rough sketch of the opera contained several
arias based on music Handel had originally devised for Saul: Tirinto’s lovely aria ‘Se potessero i sospir miei’ is an
elaborate reshaping of David’s ‘O Lord, whose mercies numberless’. However, borrowed material also travelled in
the opposite direction: a couple of passages in the famous elegy in Saul were based on musical ideas taken from
the first draft of Imeneo. By the end of September 1738 Handel had provided only a rough outline to the recitatives
(most of them were fully texted and with vocal clefs and character names, but did not yet have any music filled in)
and not yet written the concluding chorus, but he had composed the overture, most of the arias and concerted
movements.
Handel presumably stopped work on Imeneo when he realised there was no short-term prospect for it to enter
production. After performing the new oratorios Saul and Israel in Egypt, the availability of the visiting soprano
Constanza Posterla (and also her singing daughter) enabled Handel to produce the pasticcio Giove in Argo in May
1739; three of its new arias were based on material from the abandoned Imeneo. However, it was around this
time that he also comprehensively revised Imeneo, bringing the score to a form that could have been completed
quickly so that it could be performed by the ad hoc group of singers. However, the Posterla family quit England
abruptly, once again leaving Handel’s hopes for Imeneo disappointed. It seems that in autumn 1739 he made
some further minor amendments to the score and re-set some movements, but for the third time prospective
plans for the opera came to naught.
In October 1739 he adapted the overture’s allegro when preparing the concerto grosso Op. 6 No. 9 (HWV 327)
for publication, and soon afterwards in January–February 1740 he used some musical ideas from the abandoned
Imeneo in his composition of the Miltonic ode L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, but Handel’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields
concert series during the 1739–40 season featured no Italian operatic entertainments of any kind. This absolute
departure from opera was unprecedented in Handel’s career, whereas the following 1740–1 season proved to
be his final fling with Italian opera: most of the performances took place at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and included the
short-lived productions of his final operas Imeneo and Deidamia.
In autumn 1740 Lord Middlesex’s Italian opera company had failed to raise a subscription and released the
castrato Giovanni Battista Andreoni, so it seems that Handel saw an opportunity to accrue a capable enough cast
of singers to produce operas. At long last, he fully completed Imeneo on 10 October 1740. The score was different
in many respects from the version drafted two years previously because the composer had revised it yet again
for his new cast: the title-role originally designed for tenor (presumably John Beard) was rewritten for the young
bass William Savage, Andreoni sang the role of Tirinto (which in 1738 was probably intended for Maria Antonia
Marchesini, known as ‘Lucchesina’), Miss Edwards (described by Jennens as a “little girl” and a protégé of the
actress Kitty Clive) sang the part of Clomiri, whose father Argenio was performed by the Dresden-born bass Henry
Reinhold. The talented trilingual soprano Elisabeth Duparc (‘Francesina’) played the prima donna role of Rosmene.
Imeneo was described in newspaper advertisements as an “Operetta” on account of its brevity, and a week before
the first performance Anne Donellan wrote to Elizabeth Robinson that “Handel next week has a new opera, which
those who have heard the rehearsal say is very pretty.” The first performance took place at Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 22
November 1740 (St Cecilia’s Day); that night Thomas Harris wrote to his brother James (Handel’s friend):
“I have just now bin at Mr. Handel’s operetta, at which were the King and all the St. James’s royall
family and a very good house. I don’t think it met with the applause it deserves, as I think there are a
great many good songs in it … Almost all our musical friends were there, and are all well; but some
of us wish again for oratorio’s.”
A performance advertised for 29 November was cancelled because Francesina was ill; Handel gave only one more
performance on 13 December, on which occasion The London Daily Post reassured the public that “Strict Orders
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have been given for Fires to be kept in the House to make it warm”. It is likely that the staging of Imeneo was much
less lavish than Handel’s previous London operas; the entire opera seems to have been set in a pleasant garden
(without scene changes or scenic effects). On 29 December Charles Jennens complained to James Harris: “We
have had nothing new yet but the Operetta of Hymen, in my opinion the worst of all Handel’s Compositions, yet
half the Songs are good.”
Most modern observers would disagree with Jennens’ overly severe judgment. Handel never performed another
staged opera after the 1740–1 season, but he did present two performances of an abridged and drastically altered
concert version of Imeneo in March 1742 during his subscription concert series at Dublin. Described on the Dublin
word-book as a ‘Serenata’, these were his last ever public performances of an Italian-language music drama.
Imeneo was not performed again until an arrangement was staged at Halle in 1960; the first British revival was a
conflated edition by Sir Anthony Lewis performed at Birmingham in 1961, whereas Handel’s own 1740 version
received its modern premiere in an edition by Anthony Hicks produced by the Handel Opera Society at Sadler’s
Wells in 1984. Imeneo is not quite as neglected as it used to be, but nonetheless this evening’s performance by
the Academy of Ancient Music and Christopher Hogwood is a valuable opportunity to experience an undervalued masterpiece. Tirinto’s virtuosic ‘Sorge nell’alma mia’ and Argenio’s brooding ‘Di cieca notte’ invites instant
comparisons between those arias and their influence on prominent moments of Messiah (drafted the summer
after Handel’s final opera season ended). The composer’s masterful use of an economical orchestration restricted
to strings, oboes, bassoons and basso continuo reveals that his ability to paint characterisations through astute
and subtle musical invention remained undimmed in his last operas, and Rosmene’s feigned mad scene is
the comic counterpart of the greatest accompanied recitative scenes in the gravest Royal Academy operas (it
even contains a quotation from Bajazet’s suicide in Tamerlano). The affectionately anti-heroic tone of the gently
unfolding drama, with its unexpected ‘wrong’ conclusion, confirms Winton Dean’s praise that Imeneo “illustrates
what may be called the Mozartian side of Handel’s creative personality, in which emotional depths are plumbed
beneath a surface of light comedy.”
© David Vickers 2013. Dr David Vickers is co-editor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia (2009) and editor of an
anthology of Handelian literature (Ashgate’s ‘Baroque Composers’ series, 2011).
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