A monument to Greek tragedy, Sophocles’ Trachinia immortalizes the timeless drama of marital jealousy. Hercules returns from the siege of Oechaly with a war hostage, the young Iole. Faced with the beautiful prisoner and driven by jealousy, Dejanira attempts to secure her husband’s fidelity with a gift. Handel always wanted this oratorio in English to be considered a musical drama. In order to reinforce the dramatic tension and to give Hercules its operatic colors, David Stern proposes an interpretation based on the original manuscript and the reworkings that Handel made in 1749 and 1752.
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