Handel’s Theodora may just be his best oratorio, even if nowadays it’s better known in fully staged versions.  On Friday night it was presented by a combination of the Schola Cantorum, The Theatre of Early Music and assorted guests under the direction of Daniel Taylor at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

In some ways it was a stripped down version.  An uncut Theodora runs about three and a half hours whereas Friday night had about two hours of music.  Almost all the really memorable stuff was included and a synopsis linked to the the libretto was provided so I think that even someone not familiar with the piece woud get the general gist.  It was a reduced orchestra too; no brass, no timpani, no organ, but since they are pretty much only used to accompany the Chorus of Heathens not a big deal though those choruses were less “grand” than in a more complete version.  What we got in abundance was Theodoras (Theodorae?) since the title role was split between six sopranos.

There were some interesting interpretations; in part because two of the soloists were experienced opera singers and the others, while of high standard, were obviously young singers.  Alexander Dobson sang Valens and he sang powerfully and left no-one under any illusions that he was the villain of the piece.  Owen McCausland sang Septimius.  Now, technically he is a UoT student but we can safely say he’s had a lot more stage experience than most of them!  It was a powerful and stylish performance.  Against those two one would expect the youngsters to sound a bit underpowered and maybe they were a bit, though Handel scores most of the airs so lightly that it’s just not a really a problem.

That said they were good.  In the case of Nadia Zbogar, a mezzo-soprano singing Irene, considerably better than good.  It’s a big ask to sing arias that are so associated with truly great mezzos but she acquitted herself very well.  She has a lovely voice with some really interesting colours and her interpretation of the character was excellent.  Christian Masucci-Fachinni also made an appealing Didymus.  The finally duet with Theodora “Streams of pleasure ever flowing” was particularly lovely.

I failed to fully keep track of the Theodorae; Erica Harvey, Sarah Shelley, Jianjing Zhou, Emma McNeil, Kayla Ruiz and Sasha Koukarina, but all acquitted themselves well.  I did make a note of a couple of highlights though; Sarah Shelley’s “Angels, ever bright and fair” and Jianjing Zhou’s “With darkness deep, as is my woe” were really excellent.

The chorus sang very decently too though the building’s acoustic did them no favours.  There was a muddiness that somewhat undermined the crisp directness of Handel’s settings but it wasn’t the singers fault.

One suspects that there are purists who would deprecate the approach that Daniel Taylor took with this performance.  I’m not one of them.  The shortened version likely introduced the work to a number of people not familiar with it (and if you are one of them and want to see/hear the whole thing there are reviews of three versions for you to choose from on the video review pages).  And since part of the point of student performances is to create performance opportunities splitting up Theodora’s music was a reasonable thing to do.

All in all, a good way to spend a Friday evening.