United Kingdom Handel, Theodora: Soloists, Arcangelo Orchestra and Chorus / Jonathan Cohen (conductor). Barbican Centre, London, 29.3.2023. (CSa)
Cast:
Louise Alder – Theodora
Tim Mead – Didymus
Anna Stéphany – Irene
Stuart Jackson – Septimius
Adam Plachetka – Valens
Guy Elliot – Messenger
Handel was almost 65 years old, his eyesight fast fading, when, in 1748, in collaboration with his librettist the Reverend Thomas Morell, he wrote his penultimate oratorio Theodora. Handel’s retirement from the operatic stage was imminent, and oratorio became his main means of creative expression. Quite why, on this occasion, he abandoned his previous and commercially successful practice of setting an Old Testament text in favour of this tale of Christian martyrdom is hard to say. After a glittering albeit financially unpredictable career as one of the most accomplished theatre directors and musical impresarios of his age, he was now in the last chapter of his life. Perhaps this was the right moment to turn his back on the demands of fashionable society – all grand spectacle, wit, drama and political intrigue – and devote his creative energies to greater reflection and spiritual fulfilment.
Theodora is, above all, an expression of Handel’s deep religious faith. After all, his smart house in Brook Street, Mayfair, was but a short walk from St George’s Church, Hanover Square, which he visited almost daily when in London. Theodora is also one of the most contemplative and introspective of his works, featuring aria after aria of ineffable beauty, delicacy and tenderness. The tragic story, set in the year 304 AD, centres on Theodora, a young Christian noblewoman who is enslaved in Roman-occupied Syria during the anti-Christian terror. Refusing to offer sacrifices to the Roman Gods, she is imprisoned and consigned forced into prostitution. Didymus, a seditious young army officer who is in love with her and has secretly converted to Christianity, tries to rescue her. Both are sentenced to death and are executed together.
Unsurprisingly, religious oratorios about piety, sacrifice and virtuous love did not find favour with contemporary audiences, and when Handel and Morell premiered Theodora at Covent Garden in 1750, it was a box office disaster. Nonetheless, the composer firmly believed until his death that it was his finest work. Handel’s contemporary, the music historian Charles Burney, recorded how Handel, looking out at an almost empty auditorium on the show’s third and last night, observed in his thick German accent: ‘Nevre moind: de moosic vil sound de petter’. He would doubtless have been delighted to see an almost capacity audience at the oratorio’s most recent London performance at the Barbican, by a fine cast of soloists and the period instruments and chorus of Arcangelo under the impeccable direction of Jonathan Cohen.
Although the Barbican’s sizeable auditorium is not ideal for a small ensemble of 31 players and a chorus of 27, Cohen, standing or accompanying from the harpsichord, coaxed a rare warmth, precision and vibrancy from his band. The cast of soloists could not have been bettered. Soprano Louise Alder as the eponymous Theodora possesses a voice which is lyrical, expressive, and masterfully controlled. Contrast her markedly restrained performance of the Part 1 air ‘Angels, ever bright and fair’ – chaste and exquisitely pure – with her expansive, soaring, almost airborne account of the Part 2 aria, ‘O that I on wings could fly’. Alder was perfectly paired with countertenor Tim Mead, who sang the part of Didymus. Originally composed for the celebrated castrato Gaetano Guadagni, Mead comfortably encompassed the role’s wide vocal range. A stony-faced figure of righteousness throughout, he delivered arias such as ‘Kind Heav’n, if Virtue be thy Care’, with absolute clarity, and his duets with Theodora ‘To thee, though glorious Son of Worth’. and the heavenly ‘Thither let our Hearts aspire’, were perfectly balanced and sublimely beautiful. Anglo-French Mezzo Anna Stéphanie’s Irene, as the Christians’ earnest cult leader, sang with honeyed tone, illuminating the familiar aria ‘As with rosy Steps the Morn’, with inextinguishable shafts of light. Tenor Stuart Jackson’s Septimius, the conscience-stricken Roman officer who despite his friendship with Didymus dared not defy the law, brought great poignancy to ‘Descend, kind Pity, heav’nly Guest’, making his cruel boss Valens (in a barn-storming performance by stentorian bass-baritone Adam Plachetka) appear increasingly evil. The structure and overall success of the performance was however undergirded by the magnificent and versatile chorus, from whose (sometimes devoutly Christian, sometimes earthy heathen) ranks, came a strikingly fine young messenger (tenor Guy Elliott).
In the last 25 years, there have been a number of fully staged operatic productions of Theodora, from the ascetic and visually abstract Peter Sellers’s version at Glyndebourne in 1996, with Dawn Upshaw in the title role, and Lorraine Hunt as the Christian leader Irene, to the recent and more controversial interpretation by Katie Mitchell, featuring pole dancing soloists in a red velvet brothel. Both memorable, yet, for me, it is Jonathan Cohen’s unadorned and sensitive concert performance which let the music provide the drama, and connected us more closely with the spirit of the work and Handel’s unquestionable genius.
Chris Sallon