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Robert Howell and his Handel Consort & Quire are about to take on their biggest challenge yet with a performance of the composer's 1743 Semele.
Only remembered today for isolated arias, including the lovely Where'er You Walk, Semele dates from the years when Handel was torn between the worlds of oratorio and opera.
"The score bears the instruction that it is to be performed after the manner of an oratorio, but it's an opera," Howell insists.
"That is why the public didn't go for it at the time. They were expecting a pious, dramatic oratorio and instead got what somebody described as a bawditorio."
Howell and his musicians will present, in decorous concert, a libidinous Jupiter (Iain Tetley, a fine tenor usually to be found in less secular surroundings) in hot pursuit of Rachel Alexander's Semele and, understandably, raising the ire of Jupiter's wife Juno.
"Juno is a fantastic role," Howell enthuses.
"She is the furious, spurned wife who has caught her husband out and almost everything she sings is full of venom. And, interestingly, Beverley Hicks, who is singing the dual role of Juno and Ino, sees the vengeful Juno as something of an alter ego."
This is a man who takes his Handel very, very seriously, although he denies it is an obsession.
"Bach's nice and Vivaldi's nice," he muses, "but there is something about Handel's phrasing and he's so varied. He writes furious arias and gentle ones and some great choruses."
If Bach's overly complex music sometimes gets in the way of a total pleasure experience, "you can enjoy Handel because he has the right balance. There is enough intricacy but not too much."
Howell's fascination with Handel dates back to Invercargill in the late 1980s when the newly emigrated Englishman joined up with local church and other choirs, as well as checking out various talent quests.
"One of the women from the church who was judging the talent quest offered me some singing lessons. It turned out that she was quite a fan of Handel and she gave me a few of his songs to learn."
So, as a singer, Howell knows that this composer calls for "very good technique and breath control as well as the ability to execute difficult runs with pinpoint accuracy. You also need a strong emotive ability."
All these demands come together, Howell explains, when Juno mocks Semele and her misfortunes in the big aria Above Measure is the Pleasure Which my Revenge Supplies with "all those semiquavers that sound just like Juno's laughter".
He also points to the operatic in-joke when Edward Scorgie, as Somnus, the God of Sleep, does not reprise the main theme of his aria Leave Me, Loathsome Night. "Instead of doing the customary Da Capo repeat, he just goes back to sleep."
The Handel Consort & Quire is a going and growing concern, and Howell seems most proud of the support he has gained from the loyal instrumentalists who take part in his projects.
"For the first couple of concerts, it was difficult. I was a complete stranger.
"But now that people have worked with me a few times, they are a lot less reluctant. The other day, I emailed them and said I was looking at doing Handel's Athalia later this year and half a dozen replied immediately."
We may have to wait before we can experience Athalia with its gripping comeuppance of the tyrannical daughter of Jezebel but, this weekend, Olympian revels and revenge await, set in the finest Handelian style.
What: Semele.
Where and when: Pitt St Methodist Church, Saturday 7.30pm & Sunday 5pm.
