Oreste ("Orestes", HWV A11, HG 48/102) is an opera by George Frideric Handel in three acts. The libretto was anonymously adapted from Giangualberto Barlocci’s L’Oreste (1723, Rome), which was in turn adapted from Euripides' Iphigeneia in Tauris.
The opera is a pasticcio (pastiche), meaning that the music of the arias was assembled from earlier works, mainly other operas and cantatas also by Handel. The recitatives and parts of the dances are the only parts composed specifically for this work. Handel had put together similar works before, fitting the music of pre-existent arias to new words, but this was the first time he had made an opera in this way using entirely his own music. He assembled a collection of his arias from the previous years, ranging from Agrippina of 1709 to Sosarme of 1732, binding the pre-existent music seamlessly together with the newly-written recitatives to create a new musical drama.
The opera is in Italian, although it was written and performed in England. The lead role was written for the castrato Giovanni Carestini. It is now performed by either a countertenor or soprano.
Performance history
The opera was first performed at Covent Garden Theatre on 18 December 1734. A notice in the London press said :Last Night their Majesties were at the Theatre Royal in Covent-Garden, to see the Opera of Orestes, which was perform’d with great Applause. (London Bee, 19 December 1734). The work was performed three times in Handel's lifetime and was first revived in 1988. Among other performances, Oreste received a staging by the English Bach Festival at the Linbury Studio Theatre in the Royal Opera House, London, in 2000, and was staged for the first time in the USA at Juilliard School in 2003. The work was staged by the Royal Opera, London, at Wilton's Music Hall in 2016 and by the Handel Festival, Halle in 2018.
Roles
Synopsis
Scene: Tauris (modern day Crimea), in legendary antiquity
Years before the action of the opera, the young princess Ifigenia narrowly escaped death by sacrifice at the hands of her father, Agamemnon. At the last moment the goddess Diana, to whom the sacrifice was to be made, intervened and replaced Ifigenia on the altar with a deer, saving the girl and sweeping her off to Tauris. She has since been made a priestess at the temple of Diana in Tauris, a position in which she has the gruesome task of ritually sacrificing foreigners who land on King Toante's shores. Ifigenia hates her forced religious servitude and has had a prophetic dream about her younger brother Oreste and believes that he is dead. Meanwhile, Oreste has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge his father Agamemnon with assistance from his friend Pilade. He becomes haunted by the furies for committing the crime and goes through periodic fits of madness.
To this mythological material adapted from Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, Oreste adds the character of Oreste's wife Hermione, searching for him to aid him in his quest for restoration of his mind and peace of spirit, and also adds another character, Filotete, not present in the Euripides play.
Act 1
Sacred Grove of Diana with a statue of the goddess - Oreste is tormented both by personal remorse for the killing of his mother and by the furies. Wandering the world in a restless search for relief, he has been shipwrecked on the coast of Tauris. He prays to the goddess for peace and forgiveness (Aria:Pensieri, voi mi tormentate). Ifigenia enters with a retinue of priests and does not recognise the stranger as her brother, whom she has not seen since childhood and she believes to be dead (Aria:Bella calma). It is Ifigenia's duty to sacrifice strangers who appear in the kingdom to Diana, but she does not want to do this and advises the stranger to take refuge in the temple of Diana, to which he agrees (Aria:Agitato da fiere tempeste).Filotete,captain of King Toante's guard, who is in love with Ifigenia and she with him, arrives and promises to help her to try to save the young stranger from death, for which Ifigenia is grateful (Aria: Dirti vorrei). Left alone, Filotete is happy that Ifigenia trusts him to help her and looks forward to her love as his reward (Aria:Orgogliosetto va l'augelletto).