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Rescued innocence

London
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
03/04/2003 -  and 5, 7 and 8 March 2003
George Frideric Handel: Susanna

Gudrun J Olafsdottir (Joacim), Alexandra Rigazzi-Tarling (Susanna), Valdimar Hilmarsson (Chelsias), Benjamin Hulett (First elder), Freddie Tong (Second elder), Samya Waked (Attendant), Claire Booth (Daniel), Balcarras Crafoord (Judge)

Noel Davies (conductor), Stephen Medcalf (director)

Handel's Susanna comes between Solomon and Theodora in both time and theme. It shares with Solomon a libretto in which literary recycling, especially from Vergilian pastoral, and the celebration of married love is prominent, and with Theodora a potentially prurient focus on threatened chastity. The librettist of Susanna is unknown, but usually identified with the librettist of Solomon, because of obvious similarities of style and technique. But both Susanna and Theodora transform a soft-porn topic -- Susanna a fabliau often used as a source of genre painting, Theodora a novelette -- into something more profound. Susanna is a strange mix of pastoral tragi-comedy, with the Elders a pair of Polyphemuses and Susanna's attendant mourning for her dead swain, and of choral reflections on justice and divine vengeance not so unlike the reflections on fate and divine will in Jephtha. Theodora is much better structured, working out a subtler dialectic of pleasure, compassion and courage in text and music: Handel, if not his librettist, seems to be perfecting what he began in Susanna.

Theodora, however, is based on a dramatic source as well as on Boyle's novelette, and always had a fighting chance of working fully staged, although no-one could have predicted the power of Peter Sellars Glyndebourne production. Susanna follows the source in the book of Daniel rather closely, adding only an explicit context of Jewish persecution and war, perhaps to bring Susanna in line with the other scriptural oratorios. The story in Daniel, though, is a folktale rather than a drama, the super-hero's origin of the eponymous prophet. The operatic suffering of Susanna and the, at least initially, comic amorousness of the elders seem dropped into a different frame, although the overall shape is quite similar to that of Ariodante -- marital celebration in act one, sexual treachery leading to the heroine's despair in act two, and her redemption after a trial in act three. Guildhall's decision to present a staged production looks like roughly an evens bet, although it is encouraging that a Handel oratorio is considered mainstream enough for an advanced student showcase.

In the event, Stephen Medcalf's production was thought provoking rather than completely successful. The setting was an Anabaptist community, continent unknown, but presumably evocative of "The scarlet letter", and the set was effectively austere, all dark green with a single tree and pool for act two. Somewhat like Sellars' red-white-and-blue Theodora, it often worked well without making complete sense. The main point was the atmosphere of severity and conformity that both suppresses and nurtures lust, and descends on it with massive force when it is exposed. The chorus, whose main contributions are moralizing ones at the beginning and end of the acts, were a sinisterly choreographed throng, embodying emphatic received wisdom as well as the community. But the enactment of what is essentially symbolic and suggestive was often a problem: where the story creates a space of ghastliness when the elders approach Susanna in her garden, a staging has to show something in particular, which takes its place in the audience's value system as well as that of the story. To emphasise the horror of what happens to Susanna, this production had the second elder rape her, since a proposition alone would no longer be shocking. But depicting a rape on stage is still more transgressive than what happens -- it is the comparatively commonplace intangible threat and the accusation of adultery that are important in the story.

The individual characters were also problematic, and some of the singers were perhaps not experienced enough to round them out fully. The most straightforward was Susanna herself, intensely and movingly sung by Alexandra Rigazzi-Tarling. Gudrun J Olafsdottir as Joacim was charmingly heroic, perhaps a touch too perky: she has good coloratura, a bright tone and the makings of a fine Ruggiero or Ariodante, but she wasn't able to do much with the role, which is something like Solomon without his kingdom. Claire Booth acted and emoted womanfully as Daniel, observing events for two acts before leaping in to expose the truth in act three, making rather less impact than if she'd appeared from nowhere. Samya Waked was striking in the smaller role of the attendant.

Valdimar Hilmarsson as Chelsias, Susanna's father, had only conventional things to say and sing, and he looked impressive enough but didn't really have a chance dramatically. He has an attractive baritone voice, though. Of the two elders, Benjamin Hulett got a lot of verbal sense out of his would-be romantic arias, but didn't quite have the vocal charm to match, or the sense of underlying nastiness, while Freddie Tong was solidly sinister, with a beautiful, rock-solid voice and spot-on singing.

The chorus was extremely good, well rehearsed and choreographed, as was the modern-instrument orchestra under Noel Davies.



HE Elsom

 

 

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