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Georg Friedrich Handel. (Music Reviews).

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Georg Friedrich Handel. Tolomeo, Re d'Egitto: Dramma per musica in tre atti, HWV 25. Herausgegeben von Michael Pacholke. (Hallische Handel-Ausgabe. Ser II: Opern, Bd. 22.) Kassel: Barenreiter, 2000. [Editorial policy, pref. in Ger., Eng., p. vi-xvi; list of performances and casts, concordances, p. xvii--xix; facsims., p. xx--xxiv; Libretto-Druck (London, 1728), p. xxv--xl; Ger. trans. of libretto, p. xli--xlix; score, 157 p.; appendix, p. 159-268; Erit. Bericht, p. 269-325. Cloth. ISMN M-006-49567-2; BA 4058. [euto]242.]

Georg Friedrich Handel. Tolomeo, Re di Egitto: Dramma per musica in tre atti, HWV 25. Libretto: Niccolo Francesco Haym nach Carlo Sigismondo Capece; Klavierauszug nach dem Urtext der Hallischen Handel-Ausgabe von Michael Pacholke. Kassel: Barenreiter, c1996. [Index of scenes, cast, scoring, 3 p.; vocal score, 205 p. ISMN M-006-49932-8; BA 4058a. [euro]38.35.]

Tolomeo, re d'Egitto is an almost tautological title: most Egyptian kings who descended from the heirs of Alexander the Great were called Ptolomy. The elusive hero of George Frideric Handel's opera, Ptolomy IX Soter (not to be confused with his famous namesake from the time of Julius Caesar), ruled between 116 and 81 B.C., but with interruptions caused by his jealous mother Cleopatra III and his younger brother Ptolomy X Alexander I. The opera's libretto weaves an invented story around these historical personalities and adds some fictitious characters. It reinterprets history to aid the moral edification of a contemporary courtly society, depicting people as forlorn souls who wander in the park and express their woes in poetry and music.

First performed on 30 April 1728, when support for Italian opera was dwindling in London, Tolomeo was the last opera Handel created for the Royal Academy of Music. Nicola Francesco Haym derived the libretto from a dramma per musica by Carlo Sigismondo Capece (or Capeci), Tolomeo ed Alessandro, ovvero La corona disprezzata, first performed with music by Domenico Scarlatti in Rome in 1711 for Maria Casimira, ex-queen of Poland (as I first documented in "Handel und seine italienischen Operntexte," Handel-Jahrbuch 21/22 [1975-76]: 101-59). The opera paid homage to the sons of Maria Casimira by paralleling Ptolomy's kingdom with that of the Sobieski dynasty of Poland; members of the Arcadian...

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