When Harry Christophers took over the artistic reins of the Handel and Haydn Society almost a decade ago, he pledged to recommit the group to the music of its namesake composers. No need to search farther afield, the argument went, when there is still plenty of treasure to excavate in one’s own backyard. He might …

Handel’s oratorios, which recast tales of heroic deeds for eighteenth-century English audiences, are products of their time and place. But his Hercules offers a dire warning that still manages to speak across the centuries: Jealousy will drive you mad. Friday night at Symphony Hall, the Handel and Haydn Society and its conductor, Harry Christophers, offered …