Does this new DG issue of Handel's dramatic oratorio, or English opera, bring the first sign of a backlash, I wonder? Now for over ten years it has become the rule that baroque works of this vintage should be recorded on period instruments, not modern. Gardiner's rival offering, recorded in 1981, was a fairly early example, but now John Nelson, best-known for his recording of Berlioz's Beatrice et Benedict with Lyon Opera (Erato, 6/92), turns instead to the English Chamber Orchestra playing on modern instruments, and offers in addition a cast of opera-stars rather than specialists in baroque music. Can it be that DG are seeking to please a more middle-of-the-road public, still not adjusted to the sound of period instruments?
Following critical fashion in favour of period performance, the predictable comparison between the two sets seems to have everything stacked against Nelson and in favour of Gardiner, the conductor who more than anyone has established a warmly communicative style in period performance. On a practical level his Erato version not only takes a disc less than the DG, but those two discs come at mid-price in the Libretto series. A comparison of the widely different overall timings might well suggest that Nelson is one of the traditionalists who prefer slow, heavy speeds. QED. Happily nothing is quite so predictable, and rather to my surprise the balance of advantage comes out very much in favour of the new DG set, and that could well be so even for committed devotees of period performance.
In the first place Nelson opens out the serious cuts which Gardiner makes. There has been wide criticism that the final episode makes an undramatic ending—after Semele has expired, having persuaded Jupiter to appear to her, not in human form, but in his real guise of mighty thunderer. But particularly on disc what matters above all is the quality of the music rather than the supposed effectiveness on stage, and on that point Handel amply justifies himself. In any case, though this comes even closer to an opera than any of Handel's other English oratorios it was presented in his day as a concert entertainment. Hearing the extra numbers that Nelson includes makes it almost unthinkable ever again to do without them.
In Gardiner's version the male alto role of Prince Athamas, Semele's intended lover, is virtually eliminated. There are no fewer than three superb arias for him, which on the Nelson set Michael Chance sings magnificently, transforming the character. There is also a moving aria in Act 1 for Semele's sister, Ino, ''Turn hopeless lover'', which Gardiner cuts, here beautifully sung by Marilyn Horne, who following traditional practice doubles the role of Ino with the jealous Juno. That casting is apt, when Juno, determined to destroy Jupiter's latest lover, appears to her in the guise of Ino, and Horne superbly contrasts the characters, gentle as one, fiery as the other. She is as characterful and agile as she ever was, with the chesty voice very much scaled to the needs of Handel.
Gardiner's most serious omission is Semele's enchanting bird aria, ''The morning lark'', also in Act 1, following immediately on the pleading aria, ''O Jove in pity teach me''. Kathleen Battle, similarly scaling her voice down, copes with the many trills with wonderful precision and poise. You could argue that two arias in succession are unnecessary at that early stage of the plot, particularly when the second in its formality harks back to an older tradition, but the musical loss is what matters.
The overall timings of Act 1 gives some idea of Gardiner's omissions, with Nelson taking over 62 minutes as against Gardiner's 37. In Act 2 Gardiner's timing is the longer, yet there he includes an extra aria for a character who otherwise does not appear at all, Cupid. That, I fear, whatever the scholarly arguments (it is not included in the old Handel Edition score but is in the OUP score edited by Sir Anthony Lewis and Sir Charles Mackerras), I do find an intrusion. It comes in Act 2 immediately before the most famous of Semele's arias, ''O Sleep, why dost thou leave me'', and being gentle too and twice as long rather undermines the effect of that lovely number in advance. Conversely, Nelson includes a brilliant aria for Juno in Act 3, ''Behold in this mirror'', which, according to Winton Dean in his incomparable book on the oratorios, Handel cut at an early stage because of length. Horne sings it with such flair that Juno's machinations against Semele seem all the more venomous.
In fact, against expectation Nelson's speeds are consistently, with very few exceptions, faster than Gardiner's. LS in his original review of the Erato set commended Gardiner's brisk speeds and springy rhythms, and I certainly agree, but Nelson, for all his use of modern instruments, has learnt most of the essential lessons of period performance, and though the pitch is higher, his performance is not only brisker, but crisper. Obviously period textures often allow more inner detail, but generally Nelson's period manners cannot be faulted, whether over double-dotting, ornamentation (not least in da capo reprises) or light, crisp articulation.
As to the respective line-ups of soloists, Gardiner offers a splendid group of British singers, with the purity of Norma Burrowes emphasizing the innocence of the heroine in her aim to become immortal by giving in to Jupiter's attentions. On the Nelson set Kathleen Battle's voice is more sensuous as well as silvery, and the character at once becomes more complex. When she sings the dazzling Act 3 aria, ''Myself I shall adore'', there is an element of irony that matches the underlying aims behind the work, with Handel almost certainly intending to satirize George II's mistress, Lady Yarmouth, who was thought to be aiming to marry the king. With Battle, Semele becomes a Handelian equivalent to Yum-Yum in The Mikado, knowingly innocent in her self-regard. Battle is every bit as stylish as Burrowes in coping with elaborate divisions, and if anything her cadenzas and extra ornamentations on da capos are even more spectacular, with attack consistently clean.
As the fire-snorting character of Juno, both Della Jones and Marilyn Horne are superb. As LS said in his original review of the Gardiner, Della Jones ''steals the show on her every appearance'', but so does Marilyn Horne, and scaled down, the voice does not reveal any of the signs of wear that have marked some of her more recent recordings. This reminds me of her earliest performances in baroque opera, rich, full of flair and wonderfully agile. As Ino she aptly modifies her tone, so that at first I hardly recognized her. Catherine Denley is cast as Ino for Gardiner, excellent too, and apart from Elisabeth Priday slightly hooty in the extra Cupid aria, there is no weak link in the Erato cast, though the alto, Timothy Penrose as Athamas, has little chance to show his paces at all, as Michael Chance does so magnificently for Nelson in his spectacular arias.
The basses are both first-rate, Robert Lloyd for Gardiner, Samuel Ramey for Nelson, who doubles the role of Cadmus, Semele's father, with that of Somnus, whom Juno consults rather like Wotan consulting Erds in The Ring only the other way round. The buffo element in the role of Somnus is delightfully sketched in. The Nelson set suffers from a wobbly baritone taking the tiny part of the Priest, the first voice you hear, and in the comparison between Anthony Rolfe Johnson as Jupiter in the Gardiner set and John Aler on DG, my preference goes to Rolfe Johnson, whose singing of ''Where'er you walk'' and much else is rather better-characterized and sung with no hint of strain at all. Aler is also very good indeed, if not at his very finest. Ian Mackie in the brief solo for Apollo at the very end is even sweeter-sounding than Maldwyn Davies for Gardiner.
Both choruses are excellent, with Gardiner's smaller-scaled than Nelson's Ambrosian Singers, but both adding to the impact of a masterly opera that on record has never fully had its due. It is astonishing that a piece containing one of Handel's best-known arias and much else that is strikingly original, like the strongly-characterized Act 1 quartet and other ensembles, should have been so neglected. Though the Gardiner set gives a tempting taster, it is the far fuller text of the Nelson, performed with modern instruments but in a way that pays tribute to Handelian scholarship, which weighs conclusively in his favour, helped by a cast both starry and stylish. The full-ranging DG recording avoids the occasional oddities of balance in the Erato, and provides some convincing sound-effects of thunder and the like.'