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ACT I In Dejanira’s palace, anxiety has curdled into certainty. Hercules has been gone for a long campaign, and an ominous oracle convinces Dejanira that his end is near. Grief overwhelms her, while their son Hyllus tries to steady her and vows to search the world for his father. News suddenly breaks the spell. Lichas, the herald, arrives to announce that Hercules lives and is returning in triumph after overtaking Oechalia. Yet victory brings a shadow. A procession of captives follows the conqueror, and among them is Iole, princess of Oechalia, whose beauty and sorrow draw immediate sympathy from Hyllus. Iole herself mourns her ruined world and the loss of...

DEAR FRIENDS: Welcome to Hercules and the return of The English Concert to Omaha. If you attended their performance of Handel’s Giulio Cesare last year, you know to expect world-class musicianship and theatricality in this semi-staged interpretation of another great work by Handel. Without sets and costumes, the singers and orchestra give unencumbered performances that embody a range of emotions, notably the intense feelings of jealousy that drive the plot of Hercules. Here, Handel is ahead of his time with the character of Dejanira who descends from paranoia into full-blown psychosis, a precursor to the operatic “mad scene” trope. It is a tour-de-force for a mezzo-soprano, and I know you wi...

Ask ten people what “the story of Hercules” is, and you may get ten different answers. Ancient writers treated Hercules (Greek: Heracles) like a legend you could zoom in or out on: sometimes he is a monster-slayer doing public feats, and sometimes he is the center of a family tragedy. Handel’s work (libretto by Thomas Broughton) is based mainly on Sophocles’ Women of Trachis and Book 9 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Hercules of Legend: The Public Figure The labors (lion, hydra, boar, and so on) are the Hercules most people recognize: feats performed under command mixing brute strength with endurance, cleverness, and sometimes help from others. Different ancient frameworks emphasize different ...