Cheap Handel - Theodora / Christie, Upshaw, Daniels, Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Video) (Peter Sellars) Price

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Customer Reviews of Handel - Theodora / Christie, Upshaw, Daniels, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

Handel vs. Sellars
"A Viewer" describes this Theodora as "rubbish." The term might more aptly be applied to the views of someone who thinks one of Handel's best English oratorios was originally written in Italian! While I am somewhat sympathetic to repulsion at the antics of Sellars, his frequently misguided nonsense cannot begin to overcome the musical virtues of this performance. This is an absolutely first rate Theodora musically, something no Handelian should miss, despite the often goofy staging. To be fair, some of Sellars devices work beautifully (the Valens scenes are delicious!) and if one can overlook the idiotic gesturing of the chorus and the death scene by lethal injection (a low point in classical video for sure), much of this production actually does serve to enhance the drama. I do wish Handel producers would try the obvious approach at least occasionally and not fight the music. Given the state of Handel DVD's, that would be the REALLY radical approach! Handel still emerges victorious here, but it would be better if he didn't have to compete with maniac directors on colossal ego trips.

To err is Sellars, although the singing is divine...
You will find the reviewers for this DVD enormously enthusiastic for both the singing and the staging. I concur absolutely insofar as the singing is concerned, but the staging...? <
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>Let me get the negative aspect of this review over with first. For me, this performance failed to work in spite of some extremely moving moments, BECAUSE of the dreadful staging. Not only did I loathe the idea of updating this oratorio to a modern American setting, but the gestures set by Sellars were unbelievable. The setting frankly doesn't make sense in terms of the libretto and the driving motivations of the characters. Handel's opera is not really about political oppression. Some people are apt to combine religious persecution and political oppression into one handy container, but that doesn't always work. "Theodora" is an oratorio, and a religious one at that. It's unequivocally religious in nature, and of all of Handel's oratorios this is the one that most resembles a mediæval miracle play. By this, I mean it focuses specifically upon the life of a saint who is captured, tortured, and ultimately killed for her faith. The oratorio is about the capture, torture, and execution of Christians, where the glory and uplifting nature is those saints' triumph in adversity. Again, I stress that it's religious persecution, not political, which is the centre of this dramatic oratorio, but Sellars largely ignores this to put his own spin on the setting. A modern American setting clearly doesn't provide the same - or even an apt - dramatic framework. Am I the only person who finds Sellars' way of cramming a work into a mold of his making tedious? <
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>Picture, if you will, repeated arm movements of rigid clumsiness, coke cans, silly attempts to make the music "relevant" by using modern gimmicks or situations... The semaphoric gesturing was tedious and ludicrous. I was reminded of nothing so much as kindergarten children making hammy gestures to a performance of "Do the hokey-pokey". All kudos to the wonderful cast who did their best with it all, but Peter Sellars is clearly so busy being Peter-Sellars-the-avant-garde-director that he doesn't pay attention to what the music or plot are really demanding in terms of staging. <
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>A modern setting might have worked - but not this one. <
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>And it is bizarre that works which were DESIGNED and COMPOSED to be performed within a particular range of settings (there's plenty of room for innovation within those ranges, and yes, one can push the boundaries somewhat... sometimes...) are now being consistently "modernised", while the fever for movies set in ancient or fantastical times (Lord of the Rings; Troy; King Arthur; to name but a few) has never been higher. I ask myself why intelligent and creative directors aren't taking more advantage of this, and creating lush and ancient settings for these terrific oratorios and operas to give them precisely the fantastical ambience which would work so well with the music and be so visually appealing to audiences... <
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>As I mentioned above, there were some moments in the DVD that were lovely. The wonderful Lorraine Hunt was outstanding in her role, and whenever she sang, Sellars seems to have had the sense to let her portray it quite simply, using mostly the tension of her body and her intense facial expressions to convey the vividness of what she sings. <
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>It is with far more pleasure that I comment upon the singing and the glorious playing of the orchestra (wonderfully conducted by William Christie). Almost without flaw, the cast did a superb job with the music. David Daniels is a remarkable countertenor living up to all the promise of his earlier roles, and the sheer beauty of his voice is sure to win more and more fans. His is a mellow sound of great power, unusual for counter-tenors. Richard Croft is undoubtedly one of the finest tenors in the world, and both in slow arias requiring delicate spin and faster arias requiring fiendish control over the coloratura, he displays such mastery and beauty of tone that it is enough to make any listener weep with pleasure. Lorraine Hunt, as I've mentioned, is fabulous - she's singing in a wonderful tessitura in this role as Irene, and it gives her the chance to display the honey-laden texture of her voice as well as extraordinary sympathy for the emotions of this role. Utterly, utterly convincing... <
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>Not so convincing is Dawn Upshaw. I found her... adequate, but not wonderful. This has been true for much of her work - those who are her fans will of course disagree with me. But I've never enjoyed her Handel or Mozart much. I always feel as if there are aspects, both vocally and stylistically, which elude her when it comes to classical and baroque period music. She's so very good in more modern music (her Messiaen is just ravishing! and Debussy brings out some wonderful things in her singing) that I wonder whether she's focused much more strongly on getting to the centre of such styles and worked much more upon burnishing her vocal powers to suit the more modern repertoire than upon finding the right timbre and vocal approach to Handel, Mozart, etc. <
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>To hear exactly what I mean, listen to the unutterably glorious recording of this oratorio conducted by Paul McCreesh, in which Paul Agnew delights to the nth point of ravishment with his Septimius, Valens is superbly sung by Neal Davies, Didymus receives unutterably lovely singing by Robin Blaze, Susan Bickley does a good job (although admittedly not as fine as Lorraine Hunt) with Irene, and the almost unbearably superb Susan Gritton sings with enough vocal beauty and wonderful Handelian style to guarantee her a place in heaven. THERE... there we have the exact tone required to make "Angels ever bright and fair" come to exquisite life. There isn't a tone out of place. This indeed is singing of a high order, and I can without equivocation recommend the recording (Archiv 469 061-2). <
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>In general, regarding this DVD, I can strongly recommend the singing. I would love to see a staging that is more respectful of the baroque music and isn't so silly... but the cast of this DVD would be difficult to better, except in the case of the Theodora herself. <
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>Do be prepared, if you purchase this DVD, to watch it in several stages. Trying to watch all the way through may leave you, as it did me, exhausted by the lack of imaginative and appropriate staging and all those nursery-style arm movements.