Handel the Merciful: His Last Oratorio, "Jephtha"

Despite the fact he never married, or perhaps because of it, no one to my knowledge has ever accused the baroque composer George Frideric Handel of being a misogynist. Quite the contrary, he frequently re-wrote parts of The Messiah so that sopranos in particular and other soloists could appear at their best.

Handel was definitely a "singer's composer."

Idomeneo: The Story of Abraham With a Twist?

Attending Mozart's "Idomeneo" at the Met the other night got me thinking -- and I'm certainly not the first to have made this connection -- of the Biblical story of Abraham.

In both cases, a god requires a mortal to kill his first-born or at least most important son. That's perhaps the most difficult order a father could receive, in a patriarchal society at any rate.