Susanna (Handel)

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The prophet Daniel saves Susanna by Gustave Doré
Susanna and the Elders by Artemisia Gentileschi

Susanna ( HWV 66) is a dramatic oratorio in three parts by Georg Friedrich Händel .

Emergence

Handel began working on Susanna less than a month after graduating from Solomon . He composed the first act from July 11th to July 21st, 1748. He finished the second act on August 21st, the whole work on August 24th. The work first hit the stage on February 10, 1749 at the Covent Garden Theater and brought it to four performances. It was only resumed for one performance by Handel in 1759.

libretto

The theme of the oratorio is the story of Susanna in the bath , which is told in the book of Daniel ( Dan 13,26–63  EU ) and which has already inspired numerous painters. The poet of the libretto is unknown, but Winton Dean gives reasons why it is the same as Solomon's. Newburgh Hamilton is named as a possible librettist .

people

The cast was sung by the following singers at the world premiere:

content

first act

The Israelites lament their captivity. Susanna and her husband Joacim sing of the happiness of their marriage and Susanna's father of his pride in having such a model wife as a daughter. Joacim has to leave town for a few days and says goodbye to his wife. The two village elders are filled with lust and want to seduce the beautiful Susanna while he is away. The choir comments that such outrages result in the wrath of Heaven.

Second act

Joacim sings about how he misses his wife. Susanna also misses her husband and seeks protection from the sun by bathing in a stream in her garden because of the hot weather. She is watched by the two lustful village elders, whose advances she rejects in disgust. The elders take revenge by announcing to the congregation that they have caught Susanna committing adultery with a young man and initiating proceedings for adultery. Joacim is informed of this and returns home.

Third act

Susanna is found guilty and sentenced to death. The first village elder pretends to be very affected. The young prophet Daniel , little more than a child, emerges from the crowd and demands to be able to question both elders separately. Since both tell contradicting representations of how they want to have caught Susanna in adultery, they catch Daniel as a liar. The village elders are sentenced to death, Susanna is reunited with her loving husband, and everyone extol Susanna's virtue and chastity.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Program notes for Handel's "Susanna" at the Barbican, London . Barbican Hall. October 25, 2009. Archived from the original on May 23, 2013. Retrieved September 12, 2013.

literature

  • Winton Dean : Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques . Clarendon, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-19-816184-0 , (Original edition: Oxford University Press, Oxford 1959).
  • Hans Joachim Marx : Handel's oratorios, odes and serenatas. A compendium. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1998, ISBN 3-525-27815-2 .
  • Albert Scheibler, Julia Evdokimova: Georg Friedrich Händel. Oratorios guides . Edition Cologne, Lohmar 1993, ISBN 3-928010-04-2 .

Web links