Harry Bicket and the English Concert presented the composer’s highly theatrical but little-known 1745 oratorio in an uneven but frequently arresting performance.
By
Heidi Waleson
March 18, 2026 at 5:22 pm ET
Harry Bicket and the English Concert at Carnegie Hall. RICHARD TERMINE
New York
The annual Carnegie Hall visit of Harry Bicket and the English Concert, the superb period-instrument orchestra, is a required date for Handel opera fans. On Sunday, the ensemble presented “Hercules” (1745), one of the composer’s less familiar works.
Handel was financially buffeted by battles with rival opera companies in London, and by the late 1730s he had moved from writing Italian operas to composing oratorios in English, at first with biblical subjects and texts. “Hercules,” with a secular story drawn from Greek mythology, is nominally an oratorio—it was unstaged at its London premiere and carries a moral lesson—but it is highly theatrical.
Thomas Broughton’s vivid text zeroes in on the last days of the hero Hercules, who returns victorious from war with a string of captives. His wife, Dejanira, instantly—and incorrectly—suspects that her husband is having an affair with one of them, the beautiful princess Iole. No one can convince her otherwise, and she decides to win her spouse back with an enchanted robe that the dying centaur Nessus told her was a love charm. But the robe is poisoned (there’s a back story about the centaur’s revenge), so her jealousy effectively kills the man she loves.
“Hercules” is more streamlined than Handel’s operas, and its most dramatic passages—including Hercules’ death and Dejanira’s subsequent mad scene—are written as accompanied recitatives rather than da capo arias. The chorus—here the superb Clarion Choir—reinforces the moral lessons at salient points. Lighthearted moments are few, as are colors from winds or brass. This slightly trimmed concert version ran three hours with one intermission.
The title notwithstanding, this is Dejanira’s story, and mezzo Ann Hallenberg had the attitude but ultimately not enough vocal heft to fully express her fury and despair. She started off strong, rich and nuanced in Dejanira’s bleak lament about her husband’s long absence and her beatific vision of their future together after death. But once the hero returns, and Dejanira’s suspicions awaken when she sees the lovely Iole, the character’s music demands more. The fast passages of her sarcastic attack on Hercules (“Resign thy club and lion’s spoils”) were muted rather than stinging; in the demanding mad scene “Where shall I fly?,” as she invoked the punishing furies, a lack of projection in her middle range undercut her credibility, flying hair and bare feet notwithstanding.
As Hercules, bass William Guanbo Su displayed an imposing instrument. He conveyed the character’s self-regard in the aria “Alcides’ name in latest story” (Alcides is another moniker for Hercules), his attempt to school Dejanira into proper respect; two oboes that appeared to be mocking him gave the aria a slightly comical tinge. But he didn’t have the expressive variety to make the horror of Hercules’ death scene match lines like “Along my feverish veins, like liquid fire, the subtle poison hastes.”
This left the afternoon’s solo vocal honors to the more conventionally written characters. Soprano Hilary Cronin was a dazzling, lyrical Iole, her precisely calibrated da capo arias capturing the princess’s serene acceptance of her lot and her consoling, thoughtful presence—the antithesis of the disturbed Dejanira. She also excelled in the fast, showy aria in which she warns Dejanira to beware of jealousy. An elaborate ornament on the word “fraught” (“With venom fraught the bosom swells”) and the intense da capo section, “Adieu to peace,” emphasized the danger of such a course.
As Hyllus, the son of Hercules and Dejanira, David Portillo was similarly impressive, his bright, easy tenor and excellent diction assets in his ardent filial devotion and wooing of Iole. Countertenor Alexander Chance was careful and effective as the herald Lichas who supplies some narrative glue—he recounts the horror of Hercules burning to death in the poisoned robe. Bass-baritone Jonathan Woody had a strong cameo as the Priest of Jupiter who announces the god’s decree of a happy ending (Hercules ascends to Olympus and Iole and Hyllus are to marry).
Some of the most arresting work came from the Clarion Choir. In the chorus at the opera’s midpoint, an almost whispered exclamation of “Jealousy! Infernal pest” was followed by subtle dissonances and then a complete change of character as the ethereal sopranos warned that “Trifles, light as floating air, strongest proofs to thee appear.” Later, its soft intoning of “The world’s avenger is no more” embodied the mourning and loss of hope after the death of Hercules.
Snappily led from the harpsichord by Mr. Bicket, the English Concert strings delivered dramatic tension and a wide variety of rhythmic effects; the continuo players—Jonathan Byers (cello), Sergio Bucheli (theorbo) and Tom Foster (harpsichord and organ)—dovetailed seamlessly with the bigger band. Extra color moments came from those mocking oboes, as well as some brief military flourishes from a pair of trumpeters. Next year’s even more unfamiliar offering, “Alessandro” (1726), with its countertenor hero (Alexander the Great) and a pair of sopranos competing for his attention, should offer another intriguing addition to this illustrious series.
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