History
Oxford was then a center of nationalist and Jacobite sentiment and Athalia was composed in the midst of a controversy about Handel's advocacy of Italian opera and may have been a pragmatic reaction to this: Handel bowed to English musical taste by writing an oratorio, a genre with which he had had two previous successes.
Handel may have chosen Jean Racine's Athalie as the basis for his libretto because of Jacobite allusions in its plot. Athalia, as presented in the Bible, was a tyrannical usurper who was finally overthrown, whereupon a hidden prince took his rightful throne – a theme obviously capable of a Jacobite interpretation. Handel uses rhetorical planning and symbols to reinstate many ideas of Racine's that are lost in Samuel Humphreys' libretto.
The work was completed on 7 June 1733, and first performed on 10 July 1733 at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. The Bee (14 July 1733) reported that the performance was "performed with the utmost Applause, and is esteemed equal to the most celebrated of that Gentleman's Performances: there were 3700 Persons present".
Read more about this topic: Athalia (Handel)
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