Esther (Handel)
The version which survives is of a revision in 1720, also probably intended for private performance at Cannons, where the very wealthy Duke of Chandos employed a group of musicians and singers, and where Acis and Galatea, Handel's first non-religious vocal work in the English language, also had its premiere in 1718.
The first version of "Esther" opens as Haman decides to order the extermination of all Jews throughout the Persian empire as retaliation for Mordecai's insult to him.
Esther asks Mordecai why he is displaying grief by being dressed in sackcloth and ashes and he tells her the King has followed his Prime Minister's advice to order the extermination of the Jews.
He asks Esther to appeal to her husband to rescind the order, but she explains that it is forbidden upon pain of death to approach the King without being sent for.
She decides to take this risk anyway and goes to see the King, who pardons her breach of protocol in approaching him without invitation and offers to grant any petition she asks.
A member of the Royal Family asked Handel to present Esther at the theatre where his operas were performed, but the Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, would not permit Biblical stories to be acted out upon the stage.
Handel's Italian operas laid overwhelming emphasis on solo arias for the star singers, with no extra choruses, while for the revision of Esther, the coronation anthems "My Heart is Inditing" and a version of "Zadok the Priest" were added.
Their large choruses and grandiose orchestral effects with trumpets and drums were very different from what London audiences had experienced in Handel's Italian operas.
An anonymous pamphleteer found this novel form of entertainment, with the Italian opera stars sitting on stage in contemporary dress and singing in mangled English, rather hard to get used to:This being a new thing set the whole world a-madding.
But Handel was placed in a pulpit ... by him sat Senesino, Strada, Bertolli and Turner Robinson [stars of the Italian opera] in their own habits [clothes] ... Strada gave us a "Hallelujah" of an half hour long; Senesino and Bertolli made rare work of the English tongue, you would have sworn it had been Welsh.
[4] Notable among the pieces added for 1732 is the opening arioso for Esther, "Breathe soft ye gales", scored for strings and two each of bassoons, recorders and oboes.
The woodwinds and strings are at first divided into numerous different parts, as they play against a background of a contrasting group of continuo instruments consisting of organ, harpsichord, theorbo and harp.
[7] Susan Hamilton (Esther), James Gilchrist (Ahasuerus), Nicholas Mulroy (Mordecai), Matthew Brook (Haman), Electra Lochhead (Israelite), Robin Blaze (Priest).
Rosemary Joshua (Esther), James Bowman (Ahasuerus), Susan Bickley (Mordecai), Christopher Purves (Haman), Rebecca Outram (Israelite Woman).
