The opera Poro was one of three librettos by Pietro
Metastasio set by Handel, the others being Siroe and
Ezio. Metastasio's librettos were very popular with
opera seria composers, but although poetic, his
characterizations are very stiff, and his scenic
constructions rigid. The plots are often based on
historical fact and involve political intrigue and
polemicizing, as well as moral endings and preaching.
They preach a certain reality to their audience, and
whereas Italian lovers of opera seria ...(+)
The opera Poro was one of three librettos by Pietro
Metastasio set by Handel, the others being Siroe and
Ezio. Metastasio's librettos were very popular with
opera seria composers, but although poetic, his
characterizations are very stiff, and his scenic
constructions rigid. The plots are often based on
historical fact and involve political intrigue and
polemicizing, as well as moral endings and preaching.
They preach a certain reality to their audience, and
whereas Italian lovers of opera seria conventions ate
up the complicated nonsense of his plots, they left
Handel the dramatist rather cold. One would think that,
as a result, his settings of Metastasio's librettos
would therefore be less than splendid. However, Handel
often altered the librettos to create more flexible and
dramatic scenes, and wrote music which gave the
characters full motivations. He creates full-blooded
human beings, whose passions and struggles come to the
fore. Rather than the stiff, cardboard characters of
Metastasio's mechanical plots, Handel develops in his
music all of his character's emotions. The music of
Poro is imaginative, surprising, splendid, and sublime.
It is a heroic opera of the first order, and one of his
masterpieces. It was a huge success with the London
audience, and ran for sixteen performances during its
first run. Not only that, but the publisher John Walsh
published a songbook of the audience's favorite
melodies, which was sold in great demand. The success
of Poro, together with the success of the revivals of
Rodelinda and Rinaldo, two other extremely popular
operas with the London public, made the 1730-1731 opera
season a huge success for Handel. He was the hero of
the operatic stage. The nobility again loved him, and
it seemed as if he had triumphed over his
competition.
The opening of Poro is extremely dramatic. It begins
with a grand overture, and then the curtain rises on
the middle of a battle scene. Poro has just been
defeated by Alexander, and attempts suicide. In order
to quicken the action of the drama, Handel shortened
many of the lengthy recitatives of Metastasio and,
under the influence of current Italian trends, composed
a greater number of vocal ensembles. Whereas Metastasio
wrote his story about the hero Alexander, Handel's
opera concerns love, jealousy, passion, and despair.
Handel's imaginative force is imposed on Metastasio,
and brings forth an altogether new creation. There are
two major duets in the opera, one which closes Act I,
and another which ends the opera. In the first, Poro
and Cleofide have a love argument, in which each quotes
the music of the other in a taunting and bitter
fashion. At the end, as the two are finally united,
they have a love duet of great sublimity. Of the many
moods struck in the opera, there is a military
symphony, lovely pastoral music, a beautiful dirge for
Cleofide entitled "Se ciel mi divide", and a wonderful
siciliano for Gandarte. The finale of the opera is
lengthy, brilliant, and wonderfully constructed out of
several pieces. The opera was so popular that within
one year it had been given twenty performances.
Although originally written for Voice, I created this
arrangement for Concert (Pedal) Harp.
PARTITION