Change of Oratorio

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For a change, a Handel oratorio other than Messiah sounded seasonally sweet at UC Santa Cruz — with an added performance in San Francisco — this past weekend. Jephtha, the composer’s last major work, flowered into a satisfying evening in Nicole Paiement’s first production of the work since she studied it with acclaimed conductor John Elliot Gardiner years ago.

Considering that the performers, the university’s Chamber Singers and Baroque Orchestra, were for the most part students, Jephtha was remarkably well-executed on Saturday. The work presents a revelatory portrait of Handel, at the time of Jephtha’s creation ailing and sight-impaired. In this work, Handel increasingly permits himself to apply a free hand to conventional Baroque forms in favor of allowing the words to dictate the forms. That means he ignored da capo repeats back to the beginning of those arias where it seemed gratuitous, and freely mixed harmony against counterpoint — fugal and otherwise — in some of the choruses.

These developments give this Old Testament story a musical spontaneity that stands in relief against some of the more familiar works from earlier years. Yet it also enjoys a narrative clarity that is sometimes all but lacking in the earlier operas, such as Serse (or Xerxes).

Singers for Handel’s Skills

Handel remains the entrepreneur in this two-hour work, skillfully alternating both dry and dramatic recitatives with fully developed choral scenes and arias. Of the latter, the only one that has enjoyed export to recitals is the da capo “Waft her angels through the skies,” sung here by Brian Staufenbiel in the title role. Staufenbiel, who is Paiement’s husband and head of UCSC’s opera program, deports a light, lyric tenor that on Saturday took a while to settle in.

But settle in it did and became a secure, expressive and endearing instrument, not least in the haunting “Waft her angels.” The aria is Jephtha’s haunting plea after resigning himself to the pending death of his daughter, Iphis. (Jephtha had promised the God of Israel that, if successful in battle, he would sacrifice the first person he laid eyes on, never imagining it would be Iphis.) Apparently, happy endings were popular in those days, because an angel does indeed commute her sentence to permanent virginity and service to God, her fiancé Hamor’s disappointment notwithstanding.

The first voice to be heard following the opening sinfonia was that of baritone Aleksey Bogdanov, in the role of Jephtha’s half-brother, Zebul. This was the powerhouse voice of the production, great with vocal and dramatic authority. Now a pupil of Andreas Poulimenos, Bogdanov has studied with Staufenbiel and appeared in numerous UCSC opera productions. The veteran soprano Patrice Maginnis sang Storgè, wife of Jephtha (who heaps no small grief on him after learning of the promised sacrifice). Maginnis has a clear, lyrical voice reminiscent of the French coloratura Mady Mesplé. Sheila Willey was Iphis, also a coloratura soprano role. Hamor, a pants role, was sung by Laura Anderson, rich of tone but intimidated by Handel’s florid melismas.

A Conductor in Charge

Paiement is in her element on the podium, providing clear and unequivocal leadership to her performing forces. She shaped and phrased her university chorus of 28 voices mindful of both musical values and texts. Among these scenes are some of Handel’s finest and most imaginative choral settings, including the meter-changing “No more to Ammon’s god and King” and the Vivaldi-ish “When his loud voice in thunder spoke” from Act I, the multisectioned “How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees” from Act II, and “Theme sublime of endless praise” and “Ye house of Gilead, with one voice” of Act III. The semipro chamber orchestra of four winds and 11 strings were joined by lutenist Nina Treadwell’s Baroque ensemble of plucked strings and Linda Burman-Hall playing organ and harpsichord.

In remarks before the performance, Paiement said Jephtha is a self-portrait. At the time of its composition, Handel was depressed in both body and spirit. “It must be so …” opens the work and is heard again in the title character’s “Deeper and deeper still.” A religious skeptic, Handel altered Thomas Morell’s libretto to change “What God ordains is right” to “Whatever is is right.” He directed four productions of the work between 1752 and 1758, the year before his death at age 74.

Since 1978, Scott MacClelland has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College. In recent years he has contributed articles to Strings magazine.