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Passion London
Barbican
12/07/1999 -
George Frideric Handel Theodora
Susan Gritton (Theodora), Jean Rigby (Irene), Christopher Robson (Didymus),
Paul Agnew (Septimius), Neal Davies (Valens)
Paul McCreesh (conductor)
Gabrieli Consort and Players This performance, vividly acted but not staged, of Handel's Theodora
looks like a stop in a recording tour. Theodora, an initially
unsuccessful romance of Christian virtue martyred by heathen vice, seems an
unlikely candidate for multiple recordings. But McCreesh's energetic,
rhetorical version is different enough from McGegan's lyrical one, and from
Christie's bravura performance that accompanies Peter Sellars' wrenching
production for Glyndebourne, to justify another recording.
For many people, Sellars' detailed but contentious understanding of
Theodora as a dialogue between the pleasures of conformity and
ecstasy, with death the ultimate ecstasy, was their first introduction to
the work. McCreesh's programme note refers to it as a sentimental drama,
and it's a sign of his success that it holds together without reference to
Sellars' interpretation (though anyone who has seen that can never think
about Theodora in the same way again). Everyone here has well
defined feelings reflected and developed in the music.
McCreesh brings out the dance-like rhythms that shape and enrich (or
perhaps undercut) the Christians' pieties as much as the Roman orgies, in a
way similar to the music in Bach's Passions. His Theodora is a passionate
heroine, related to Alcina as well as Ginevra in Ariodante -- her
two arias at the start of the second act recall their second-act pairs of
aras, one slow and despairing and one agitated. These are muscular
Christians -- Theodora and Irene, as well as Didymus, stand and fight in a
welter of emotion rather than opening up to suffering. Septimius becomes
less interesting, because his conflict is between rhetorically balanced
positions rather than emotional extremes. His lyrical praises of kindness
and virtue become the gentlest music in the oratorio.
The singers were all well cast. Susan Gritton was a forceful Theodora,
singing with impeccable accuracy and unselfconscious heroism. Jean Rigby,
who sang Irene in the Glyndebourne Festival in 1997, replaced Susan Bickly,
who sang the role in the Glyndebourne Tour in 1996. Rigby started off
sounding as if she had a cold, and sounded a little insecure throughout,
but was wonderfully expressive and made the day-night-and-storm imagery
intensely dramatic.
Christopher Robson, also in the 1996 Glyndebourne Tour, and amazing, seemed
slightly uncomfortable without a staging. His voice is rather small, but he
gave his arias their full heroic force, and brought out the detailed
meaning of the recitative, something which all these performers did more
effectively than in Sellars' production, surprisingly. Robson also made the
final aria (Streams of pleasure) and duet absolutely heartbreaking.
(Didymus had two arias, The raptur'd soul and Deeds of kindness, reduced to
their A sections and one, Sweet rose and lily, cut entirely.) Paul Agnew
sang sweetly and accurately in Anglican style as Septimius, more a British
gentleman officer than a hard-bitten but sentimental old warrior. (He lost
The honours that Venus and Flora receive.) Neal Davies' Valens was a poison
dwarf rather than the usual idiotic thug. His singing was superbly sinister
and threatening, making up for some inaccuracy in the runs with nasty
vehemence.
The libretto in the programme included Septimius' final address to the
Romans, in which he converts to Christianity, which Handel didn't set. This
seemed to cause some confusion about whether the performance was over at
the end, and the applause didn't seem totally ecstatic. Perhaps the
controlled exercise of emotion really does lead to moderation in all
things.
H.E. Elsom
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