Hail to the Conquering Hero

Music: George Frideric Handel (selections from Israel in Egypt, HWV 54, 1739; Judas Maccabaeus, HWV, 63, 1747; Julius Caesar in Egypt, HWV 17, 1724; Water Music, HWV 348-350, 1717; and Xerxes, HWV 40, 1738)
Choreography: Kent Stowell
Costume Design: Mark Zappone
Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli
Duration: 38 minutes
Premiere: October 16, 1985; Pacific Northwest Ballet

Louise Nadeau and Christophe Maraval in Hail to the
Conquering Hero. Photo © Angela Sterling

Kent Stowell choreographed Hail to the Conquering Hero in 1985 as a tribute to George Frideric Handel on the 300th anniversary of his birth. The music is a selection from Handel’s repertoire of oratorios, operas, and orchestral works, including Israel in Egypt, Judas Maccabeus, Julius Caesar, Xerxes, and Water Music.

Although no music from Messiah was chosen for the score of Hail, Handel’s beloved oratorio figured prominently in the ballet’s creation. Reading about Handel’s experience as he wrote Messiah during the summer of 1741—the incredible speed with which the monumental work took shape, the composer’s trance-like absorption in his task, the exhaustion of self that followed—Stowell recognized the recurring drama of human achievement. Inspired by that heroic effort and out of a sense of spiritual need, he conceived Hail as a timeless narrative of the community in peril, the individual who heals it, and the eternal well-spring of creativity.

In a series of episodes that flow from darkness and desperation through rescue and celebration to transcendent knowledge, Hail communicates with archetypal simplicity. While the glorious union of dance, music and song may suggest that the primary subject of the work is the activity of the artist, Stowell believes that the hero is each of us who struggles, overcomes and evolves toward a fuller affirmation of our human experience.

Notes by Jeanie Thomas.