Sosarme
- Dean, Winton. “Handel’s Sosarme: A Puzzle Opera.” In Essays on Opera
(#72), 115–147. Reprint, GL,v.11.
Handel’s operas present enough puzzles “to keep a posse of musicological
detectives at work for years.” Sosarme (1732) has a good share of unresolved
questions: what was the original source of the libretto, who adapted it for
Handel, why did Handel bother altering nearly all the names in the text, why
did he cut so many recitatives, when did he do these things, and what exactly
happened in 1734, when his company included only one of the 1732 cast and
several of the other voices were of different pitch? Dean’s responses to these
queries are interesting and informative. He summarizes various wrong
answers given in the past and also makes a critical estimate of the opera.
Tamerlano
- Knapp, J. Merrill. “Handel’s Tamerlano: The Creation of an Opera.” MQ 56
(1970): 405–430.
Libretto genesis: comparison of Nicola Haym’s text with its model by
Agostino Piovene. The music of Gasparini, for the Piovene text, is compared
with Handel’s. How Handel and Haym worked together is illuminated by
information in the musical autograph.
Teseo
See Dean (#982).
Howard Hanson (1896–1981)
- Perone, James E. Howard Hanson: A Bio-Bibliography.Bio-Bibliographies in
Music, 47. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. viii, 327p. ISBN 0-313-
28644-2. ML134 .H173 P47.
Hanson’s Merry Mount,premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1934, has
received little scholarly attention. Reviews and brief notices are cited in this
volume.
Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783)
L’artigiano gentiluomois in RMCE,v.9.
- Millner, Frederick A. The Operas of Johann Adolf Hasse.Studies in Musicol-
ogy, 2. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research, 1979. xxi, 405p. ISBN 0-8357-
1006-8. ML410 .H348 M65.
A useful life and works, including for each opera: genesis, program notes,
reception (with contemporary critiques quoted), performances by city. Work-
list, backnotes, bibliography of about 100 items, expansive index of names,
titles, and topics. - “Johann Adolf Hasse und die Musik seiner Zeit.” Ed. Friedrich Lippmann.
Analecta musicologica25 (1987): 1–520.
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