page_title: Terpsicore
section_title: Context and analysis
hierarchical_section_title: Terpsicore / Context and analysis
caption_attribution_description: Covent-Garden Theatre: This engraving was published as Plate 27 of Microcosm of London (1808) (see File:Microcosm of London Plate 027 - Covent Garden Theatre.jpg).
context_page_description: Terpsicore is a prologue in the form of an opéra-ballet by George Frideric Handel. Handel composed it in 1734 for a revision of his opera Il pastor fido which had first been presented in 1712. The revision of Il pastor fido with Terpsicore as the prologue was first performed on 9 November 1734 at Covent Garden theatre in London, opening Handel's first season in that newly built theatre. Terpsicore mixes dance along with solo and choral singing and was patterned after models in French operas, a particular source being Les festes grecques et romaines by Louis Fuzelier and Colin de Blamont, first presented in Paris in 1723. The work featured the celebrated French dancer Marie Sallé as well as stars of Handel's Italian operas and was a success with audiences of the day.
context_section_description: The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera Rinaldo. A tremendous success, Rinaldo created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. Handel had composed numerous Italian operas for London, with varying degrees of success; some were enormously popular. At the end of the 1734 season, the lease Handel had on the King's Theatre in the Haymarket expired and he found another base for his operatic activity in the new theatre built by John Rich in Covent Garden. Il Pastor Fido, with the newly composed prologue Terpsichore, opened his new season there. It is the only example of a Handel opera with a prologue, and is patterned on the similar extended prologues in the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau, blending operatic arias, choruses, and dancing.
  The work opens with a chorus, followed by a bravura aria each for Apollo and Erato. Terpsicore demonstrates the power of dance in a series of contrasted dance movements, interspersed with duets and solos from the singers. The work concludes with vocal soloists, chorus and dancers joining in a praise of virtue and wisdom.
  Terpsicore is scored for two recorders, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, organ, theorbo  and  continuo (cello, theorbo, harpsichord).
caption: A picture of the theatre at Covent Garden where Terpsicore was first performed
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