The newly formed “Opera of the Nobility” posed its first competition to Handel’s King’s Theater at the Haymarket during the 1733-34 season, and it caused no little series of headaches for him. Many of his established singers defected to the new ranks, leaving the composer in a quandary as how to proceed. Shrewdly he opened his house a full two months before the Nobility opened, and presented a number of pastiches, along with revivals of Ottone, Deborah, Acis and Galatea, and others, plus a couple of new pieces, among them Parnasso in Festa, held back until after Christmas, and presented as a “serenata” for the marriage of Princess Anne (a favorite among royalty and a former student) and William of Orange.
The actual wedding ceremony took place the next day at St. James Palace, the Queen’s Chapel. It was the first lavish royal wedding in 60 years, and was a great success, drawing on the composer’s oratorio Athalia (written a year earlier). The serenata was sort of an oratorio with some scenery and costuming, but with no dramatic libretto to speak of, rather a series of vignettes where the various gods are celebrating the wedding of Peleus and Thetis at Mount Parnassus. In three parts, the work contains some of the finest music Handel ever wrote, especially some of the lovely and profoundly affecting choruses like the one that closes Calliope’s aria “I feel within my breast” that opens part II. With such costuming and lack of overt action and plot, it is no wonder that the work faded from view in light of more modern sensibilities. Even in Handel’s time that sort of thematic inference was beginning to wane. But this is a shame, as the piece is easily deserving of at least oratorio-style concert presentations, the music not losing one ounce of freshness and attractiveness.
So it is a fine thing to have this new recording in spacious and vivid sound. The singers are topnotch; my only reservation is the sometimes bloated sounding mezzo of star Diana Moore, whose intensely fast vibrato occasionally gets away from her, though she does have the ability to manipulate it in order to change the color of the instrument. Matthew Halls leads the King’s Consort in a judicious and well-paced romp through the music, and displays a fine sense of Handelian singing style. Recommended with enthusiasm.
— Steven Ritter
