PocketWatch: Handel’s Woman Have Their Say

This afternoon Pocket Opera streamed the second of the three recitals in its current PocketWatch 3-Song Mini Concert Series. The title of the program was Handel, with Care; and it featured soprano Marcelle Dronkers, whose contributions to Pocket Opera have involved a variety of roles in the operas of George Frideric Handel. She was accompanied at the piano by Jefferson Packer.

The program featured arias from three of Handel’s operas, Agrippina (HWV 6), Alcina (HWV 34), and Rinaldo (HWV 7); but Dronkers opened with two contrasting arias from Agrippina. For those not familiar with their Suetonius, Agrippina was the mother of Nero; and the opera is about her machinations to have him named emperor of Rome. In many respects the opera is a “prequel” to Claudio Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea; and, in Agrippina, Nero is one of the two men in Poppea’s life. Dronkers’ two aria performances served to establish the characters of Poppea and Agrippina (in the order in which she sang them); and one could definitely sense the complex machinations behind both of these characters.

Marcelle Dronkers evoking the character of Alcina (courtesy of Pocket Opera)

She then moved on to one of Alcina’s arias from the opera of the same name. This is one of many operas about an encounter between an evil sorceress and a virtuous knight. Needless to say, the sorceress get the more virtuoso arias as she reveals her cunning plans. Similar temptations are brewed up by Armida in her designs for Rinaldo, which evolve in the context of the First Crusade.

All three of these operas benefit from the overall narrative. Nevertheless, Dronkers selections provided a tempting foretaste of the rich character types that make Handel’s opera narratives so interesting. Those operas definitely deserve more exposure.