This year is the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death, but the revival of interest in his operas is already 20 years old. Previously he’d been best known for oratorios such as Messiah, but opera directors had become tired of the standard repertory and, with over 40 to choose from, Handel’s long-forgotten products in the field proved a gold mine. Many of the most celebrated of these resurrections are now available on DVD.
The finest of the four productions reviewed here is the 1996 Ariodante from the English National Opera, directed by David Alden. Stylishly innovative, sexually energetic, and with all the characters shown as being on the verge of insanity, this production hovers on the edge of brilliance. Handel’s compulsive, rhythmic music is shown to be a cover for barely repressed passion. Dressed in 18th-century costume, distraught characters perform his vocal acrobatics as the extensions of almost unbearable states of mind.
Written in Italian, it’s here sung in an English version by Amanda Holden. She catches the 18th-century poetic idiom perfectly and manages at the same time to be ironic and witty, providing an ideal complement to the director’s manic vision.
Ann Murray sings the errant knight Ariodante to extraordinary effect — just watch her in the long aria after she learns the king has agreed to her character’s marriage to his daughter Ginevra and succession to the throne of Scotland. She writhes on the floor and stands on tables while getting her voice around an impossibly difficult vocal line. Joan Rodgers as Ginevra is also excellent, as is Christopher Robson as the ambitious and sexually devious Polinesso. Subtitles in the version most easily available in Taiwan are in Chinese and English.
If you want to sample a Handel opera you couldn’t do better than opt for this two-DVD product. It was previously listed among 27 outstanding opera DVDs in the Taipei Times on Dec. 22, 2005.
My second choice is the Glyndbourne Festival Rodelinda, dating from 1998. Jean-Marie Villegier directs this story, also featuring sexual and political rivalry, in the style of early silent movies. He sets it in the 1920s, with cocktails, military uniforms, cigarettes and newspapers, and the entire action seemingly taking place at night. The melodic and catchy score once again only half-conceals a world of lethal intrigue and obsessive rivalry.
William Christie conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and subtitles are in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Tamerlano, like Rodelinda, was one of Handel’s early successes. The main characteristic of the two-DVD version from Germany’s 2001 Halle Festival is the large number of bonuses available — interviews with director Jonathan Miller and conductor Trevor Pinnock, and historic footage from previous Halle festivals going back to 1951 (Halle was Handel’s birthplace). There’s also a “score-plus” function by which you can opt to see the score with a shadowy version of the stage action just visible behind it.
Halle’s Goethe-theater is small, so the production can’t use elaborate scenery. It compensates for this with exotic costumes to go with the 15th-century Turkish setting, even though these actually represent an 18th-century view of imperial Ottoman styles. The cast is mostly very strong. Monica Bacelli sings the title role, and counter-tenor Graham Pushee is Andranico. Subtitles are in French, English, Spanish and Chinese.
Peter Sellars’ 1996 staging of Theodora is completely different. This work wasn’t originally an opera at all, but an oratorio. Consequently it’s static, in English, and with a Christian theme. Set in fourth-century Antioch under Roman occupation, it tells of a Christian princess, Theodora, who resists an order by the governor that everyone worship at a pagan temple. As a result she’s condemned to compulsory prostitution and, when she refuses to comply, to death, along with her beloved, the Roman Didymus, a secret convert to Christianity.
Sellars sets all this in the modern US. In the opening scene, the strongest in the production, an American president, groomed by all the tricks of the advertising industry, addresses a crowd of Coca-Cola-drinking supporters, suffers some sort of cardiac crisis, and is treated on-stage by a hi-tech medical team. He then resumes his speech to the cheers of his admirers. The long-suffering Theodora (Dawn Upshaw) and her faithful Didymus (David Daniels) are finally executed by lethal injection.
Whether the sight of deadly chemicals sliding across computer screens is an appropriate accompaniment to Handel’s early 18th-century music is open to question. But at least Sellars injects drama and occasional comedy into a work that possesses little of either. At heart, however, he’s trying to teach his audiences that all very powerful men are inevitably killers into the bargain. Handel may well have agreed, but he’d never have said so. Once again, it’s the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the pit. Subtitles are in English, French and German.
With their high-pitched voices for political ruffians, their compulsive allegros and languid laments, Handel’s operas offer, at the very least, engrossing and unusual entertainment.
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