Alceste (Handel)

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Alceste, also known as Alcides (HWV 45, HG 46b, HHA I/30), is Handel’s incidental music for a planned theatre work. It is considered a masque or semi-opera, and it was the composer’s only fully attempted theatre project, written when he was almost 65. The project was a grand collaboration between John Rich (the theatre owner), the scenographer Servandoni, and the writer Tobias George Smollett, who had drafted a now-lost play titled Alceste based on Euripides’ Alcestis. Some lyrics may have been by Handel’s frequent collaborator Thomas Morell. The piece was rehearsed at Covent Garden but never staged.

Notes by Morell suggest the work was canceled because Handel’s music was too difficult for the cast. It may also have been seen as too risky to adapt a Euripidean drama, especially as London audiences’ tastes were volatile—a point underscored by the explosion that destroyed Servandoni’s Temple of Peace during Handel’s Fireworks in Green Park. The incidental music for Alceste includes an overture and songs for Acts 1 and 4, totaling 19 movements. It was composed from 27 December 1749 to 8 January 1750. Handel later reused the music in The Choice of Hercules (HWV 69) and in revivals of Alexander Balus (HWV 65) and Hercules (HWV 60).