Turning the Handel to GO!

MANY, many years ago when this writer was young enough to give the Bunty annual undivided attention, that augustorgan featured an illustrated biography - on two facing pages - of George Frederick Handel. Towards the end of the second page the distraught composer, blind and penniless, was to be seen staggering through the streets of Dublin. Then came the triumphant first performance of his oratorio Messiah in Fishamble Street: and, amid lots of robust "hurrahs", a smiling Handel was borne aloft to the happy ever after.

Naturally the realities of the music business in April 1742 - weren't quite as simple as a child's comic would have it - far from staggering through the streets, Handel was treated like a superstar during his stay in Dublin, with fashionable ladies vying for space on the footpath outside his house to see if they could catch a glimpse of him - but the success of Messiah, smartly followed by a string of other oratorio type hits, undeniably revitalised a career which was declining as dramatically as the Italian opera seria on which it had been based.

In the intervening 250 years the piece has made its way to the top of the oratorio pops in the English speaking world; strange, then, that Dublin has never marked the anniversary of that first performance with an annual Handel celebration.

True, Messiahs break out all over the city every Christmas; true, Our Lady's Choral Society has been dodging April showers to sing excerpts from Messiah on the street every year since 1992; but a Handel extravaganza, with an actor dressed as the man himself arriving on a boat down the Liffey, with children learning to sing nursery rhymes in Handelian style, with a recital by a top Handel specialist and a busking competition and a classical disco and a candlelight performance of Messiah in a church? It sounds like a mad dream, and in a way, as Joan Merrigan cheerfully admits, it is.

Better known as a soprano than as a festival organiser, she fell in love with Messiah the first time she sang it as a soloist with Our Lady's Choral Society. When the choir began to do its annual outdoor stint in Temple Bar, she realised she wasn't the only Handelworshipper around; on one occasion, to the mingled amusement and horror of both singers and onlookers, a couple of German tourists prostrated themselves and kissed - the hallowed ground of Fishamble Street. The idea of putting together a Handel festival took root, and a year ago she began work in earnest.

"Being a realist, I thought I'd get an apathetic, beige, grey sort of reaction - I got out of bed one morning and dragged myself down the hall, not wanting to make the first call. But the first person I phoned said, `hey, that's a terrific idea', and the day went on like that until I wondered whether people were just humouring me or what.

"I didn't really believe it would happen until I went to Dublin Tourism and they said they'd been wanting to put a festival like this in place for some time."

HAVING secured the backing of Our Lady's Choral Society and settled on the venue of the lovely old church of St Nicholas of Myra in Francis Street, she found the question of money raising its ugly head.

"I went to some friends, grabbed them by the throat and said, `I need money - sponsor some of my artists'."

She did the round of corporate bodies, emerging with Dublin Port's backing for a brochure, the offer of the Foster Place Arts Centre from Bank of Ireland, a £1,000 bursary for a busking competition from Guinness, advertising and the use of Cor na nOg from RTE, and just about everything from food for hungry artists to a supply of candles.

Modest beginnings, as she agrees. "But don't forget the Wexford Festival was started by the local postman and the doctor going around on their bicycles getting everyone involved.

"Naturally when it's a first, everyone is nervous - you need people to trust you that it's not going to be rinky dinky, that it's going to be put together properly with good artists. As it is now I'm personally responsible for the financing - if nobody turns up, I go down £20,000. It's terrifying - sometimes when I think about it I get palpitations, but you just have to tell yourself to take a deep breath and get on with it. We have had some large sponsors sniffing around but a lot of people have said, now, Joan, we'll have no problem next year'. No problem next year! If I hear that again, I'll go ballistic".