From courtly beginnings in the early 17th century, opera had been aiming itself with inexorable logic towards the evening of June 6, 1727, when one aspect of its then-century-plus development blossomed into full and glorious flower.
A pair of competing divas, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, added an extra, unscripted scene to Giovanni Bononcini's opera Astianatte. They went at each other — hair pulling, shoving, scuffling — egged on by their vociferous factions in the audience. As the pamphleteer John Arbuthnot put it: " "The DEVIL to pay at St. JAMES's: oR A full and true ACCOUNT of a most horrid and bloody BATTLE between Madam FAUSTINA and Madam CUZZONI!"
Compared to these two, the Callas-Tebaldi feud of the 1950s is little more than a few icy nods over respective teacups.
Cuzzoni was dismissed from the company (soon reinstated) and Faustina seems to have come through pretty much unscathed. George Frideric Handel was undoubtedly relieved; although the fisticuffs had broken out during somebody else's opera, Handel was one of the primary composers for the Royal Academy of Music (not to be confused with the modern educational institution) and had been casting both women — and putting up with tantrums — for several seasons.
But that was all part of the job. Handel didn't just write operas; he produced them as well. He was far more than a composer; he was a businessman, an impresario, a publicist, a production manager, a stage manager, all rolled into one. He resembles a modern musician far more than his exact contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach, whose life was circumscribed by the demands of court and church life.
The long stream of Handel operas began around 1719 and continued into the 1730s. Plots weren't particularly important; most of them were drawn from history or mythology. Most of them are conspicuously absent from the modern repertory — consider Teseo, Floridante, Poro, or Flavio for just a few thoroughly obscure names. Undoubtedly the best known of the Handel operas is Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt) which boasts at least a familiar topic (Caesar and Cleopatra), but more to the point offers one of Handel's very best scores.
The Handel operas live on generally due to their music, which is far superior to most of the stuff being written at the time. (Bononcini's stuff doesn't get performed very much, for example.) In some instances the music isn't all Handel's, an issue which is the sticky wicket for Handel biographers. Handel's habit of plagiarizing music grew more pronounced in the 1730s, and there are works (such as the oratorio Israel in Egypt) which contain a shocking amount of music lifted from other writers.
But we are a several centuries and then some removed from Handel's misappropriations, and apparently all is forgiven. The operas are just as worth hearing today as they ever were, and can offer a lot of delightful surprises, wonderful melodies, and spectacular feats of vocal display. Anyone for Riccardo primo?
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