Christophe Rousset

The French ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, Chœur de Chambre de Namur, and a handful of outstanding soloists close the festival with G.F. Handel’s great oratorio Jephtha from 1751, under the direction of Christophe Rousset. G.F. Handel’s oratorio is a dramatic tale of passion, salvation, sacrifice, renouncement, faith, and doubt. The Israelites are oppressed by the neighbouring people, the Ammonites, and appoint Jephtha as their commander in the war against their enemy. Jephtha makes a promise to God to sacrifice the first living being he meets on his return, if he is victorious. The Israelites win, but Jephtha’s happiness is short-lived when he meets his only child – his daughter Iphis – on his return. She then becomes the sacrifice that Jephtha has promised God, and despite doubts and regret, he decides to keep his promise. The story is about the consequences of a promise that cannot be broken, and about the faith of a person that is so strong that he is willing to commit inconceivable acts. Handel’s musical-dramatic work sheds light on both the individual’s and the collective’s relationship to God, but is especially focused on the individual. The plot of the oratorio is a revised, expanded, and modernised dramatization of the story about Jephtha: While the original story ends in a tragic human sacrifice, the oratorio gives Jephtha a more humane ending. The work is a testament to the aging Handel’s artistic brilliance, but also bears heartbreaking evidence of his failing health. In the score, Handel wrote: ‘Unable to go on owning to weakening of the sight of my left eye.’ Jephtha was finally completed after several breaks, and was the last significant work that Handel managed to complete before his death in 1759.