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GRAMOPHONE (04/2017)
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Erato 9029588990



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Reviewer: David Vickers

It must be a world record for William Christie to have conducted four different commercial releases of Handel’s late masterpiece Theodora – a tragic drama about early Christian martyrdom seldom performed until becoming popularised in the past 20-odd years. Some of the credit for the deserved transformation in the oratorio’s fortunes has been its transferability to the opera house; this production by Stephen Langridge was staged at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in 2015. Christie’s conducting has theatrical acumen on the whole, although it takes half an hour or so for his tempos to calm down; several numbers early on are mushed by impatient rushing past important details of Handel’s musical rhetoric. There are some questionable editorial decisions (carried over from the seminal Peter Sellars production at Glyndebourne in 1996), such as a few insensitive abridgements within numbers.

Katherine Watson captures the full measure of Theodora’s dignity, lyricism and profound sublimity in every crucial scene; the middle part of ‘Angels, ever bright and fair’ has seldom been so beautifully illustrative of the heroine’s desperate plight. Philippe Jaroussky’s awkward vowels, stilted stage acting and clumsy ornamentation overshadow Didymus’s set-piece arias, but his characterisation springs to life when rescuing Theodora from the brothel – the chaste affection between the characters is poignantly etched in the gorgeous duet ‘To thee, thou glorious son’ (with plangent bassoons and impassioned long melodic phrasing from Les Arts Florissants), and in the final act Jaroussky plays a dignified martyr more persuasively than he had been as an ardent hero in Act 1. Callum Thorpe’s portrayal of the governor Valens is spoton in every respect, and a recurring strand of the production places his cruelty against Kresimir Spicer’s compassionate Septimius (his imploring to Valens in ‘From virtue springs each gen’rous deed’ is one of the best moments in the production). Less happily, Stéphanie d’Oustrac’s forceful loudness and hard timbre mean that Irene’s invocations ‘As with rosy steps’ and ‘Defend her Heav’n’ misfire disappointingly because they lack sufficient sublimity.

Stephen Langridge’s production takes a little while to bring to life the full measure of Handel’s solemn drama. Theodora’s renunciation of worldliness and conversion to Christianity (‘Fond, flatt’ring world’) and Septimius’s distraught ‘Dread the fruits of Christian folly’ are acted superbly by the entire company (including the chorus). The lewd manner of orgiastic Romans at the start of Act 2 is too vile for Handel’s amiable music, but perhaps its vulgarity serves to deepen Theodora’s ensuing confinement scene (which is sung and acted to perfection by Watson). Indeed, as the drama deepens and becomes increasingly spiritual, Langridge’s production becomes progressively more effective. The final scenes are not merely a shocking depiction of the brutality of a hard-hearted regime but, more importantly, offer a poignant tribute to virtue and goodness in the face of tyranny.

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