A Queer Georgian Yuletide: Handel’s Queer ‘Messiah’

Why mess with Handel’s Messiah, you ask? So that more of us can share in its power – particularly those at the fringes of society in some way or other – that’s why.

On the surface, Handel’s Messiah tells the story of one man’s quest to make his world a better place. Under the surface, it is a story of creation, struggle, and transformation. Handel’s music manifests these aspects of the human condition with sublime eloquence – however, on the surface, the story appears to be relevant only to certain religions and frameworks of identity. The pastiche of Handel’s Messiah we will be putting together and performing will explore what the concept of a saviour or ‘messiah’ means from a queer perspective: in the secular, sacred, interpersonal, and intrapersonal senses (your queer Georgian ‘messiah’ [in the form of a queer trailblazer who lived ‘loud & proud’ in the Georgian era] might differ to another’s Queer Georgian ‘messiah’, just like your queer messiah in the form of a modern artist and/or performer might differ to another’s); and while are modifying the libretto as and when needed to reflect this approach, we will not be messing with Handel’s powerful music – which when left in its original form, has the power to fortify both the original and modified sections of the libretto, in turn creating a more universal and inclusive story.

To be clear, we do not intend this pastiche of Handel’s Messiah to insult any religious or non-religious individuals, or to be viewed as rebellion against the classical canon for rebellion’s sake. In fact, the opposite is true: as we will be repositioning the Messiah story so that it may better resonate with a 21st-century queer audience, keeping intersectionality in mind so that whoever one is beyond their queerness feels represented, regardless of whether they identify as religious or not. After all – very much like Handel’s characterisation of a saviour in his Messiah, and very much like any and all art – classical music must rise up, challenge current norms, and re-envision where, how, and for whom we are making music. This reimagining of such a seminal musical and literary work couldn’t come at a better time, for our life and times are marked by an unwillingness to listen to one another – to the point where we isolate ourselves in ‘comfortable’ echo chambers that reinforce our existing views, which in turn demonises the opinions of others. Our approach to this queer Messiah therefore aims to help queer people understand themselves and each other better; it also aims to serve as a tool for discussion, connection, and acceptance of oneself as well as each other.

While our approach may seem radical, it is not. Other than preserving the original music, our performance is firmly anchored in the artistic traditions of the Baroque era, owing to the fact that Handel – like many other baroque composers – constantly modified his Messiah to attract new audiences, to compensate for changing performance conditions, or to oblige the needs of a particular soloist, to the point where nearly a third of Messiah underwent revision during Handel’s lifetime (with some choruses and arias existing in three or four different versions). Handel did this because he prioritised the performance experience over an ‘accurate’ rendition of the original score; therefore, for Handel, Messiah can be seen as a fluid document intended to be altered for different audiences (one can perhaps see this as a reflection of Handel’s sexuality and/or gender identity), rather than an immutable work of art. Scholar Jens Peter Larsen says it best with regard to this: ‘The basic question is whether we can talk at all correctly of an ‘authentic’ form of Messiah, understood in our later sense as a final version which as a whole and in details presents the composer’s ultimate view of the form in which he wished to hand down his work to posterity. Strictly speaking, there is no such version’.

Of course, this queer Messiah pastiche at the Foundling Museum will be made all the more special due to the fact that Handel’s Messiah has a direct link to the Foundling Museum – a link that began with Handel’s passionate support of the Foundling Hospital.