Tag Archives: mead

The Raptur’d Soul

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Theodora - ArcangeloHandel’s Theodora is probably performed more nowadays as a staged opera than as an oratorio.  The same is true for several of his other English language oratorios; notably Semele.  It was in that format I was introduced to Theodora by Peter Sellar’s famous production at Glyndebourne, which I loved, but I had never sat down and listened to the piece until getting my hands on a recent recording on the Alpha label.  Bottom line, I think it’s some of Handel’s best music.  Maybe the second part isn’t as inspired as the first and third  but it abounds in truly great airs and the libretto is really tight; dramatic and carefully constructed.

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What’s black and white and red all over?

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The 2010 Oslo recording of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea is one of the strangest opera videos I have ever seen.  Besides having an almost complete set of the characteristics that critics pejoratively assign to Regietheatre it also has a very unusual video treatment that goes well beyond quirky camera angles and overly intrusive close-ups.  So the box is being entirely accurate when it states “Based on a performance directed by Ole Anders Tandberg.  Adapted and filmed by Anja Stabell and Stein-Roger Bull”.

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Adventure story

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Robert Carsen doesn’t seem disposed to treat Handel too reverentially.  Although there is some of the trademark Carsen cool minimalism in his 2011 Glyndebourne production of Rinaldo (not to mention symmetrically arranged furniture) there’s also a degree of humour, as there is in his Zürich Semele.  I find it very effective and, judging by the audience reaction, so did the people who saw it at Glyndebourne.

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Ercole amante

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Cavalli’s Ercole amante was written for the wedding of Louis XIV to Marie-Thérèse, a Habsburg princess.  The marriage itself being the seal on the French victory over Spain in the war that had lasted until 1659.  It’s an odd work considering.  It’s not nearly as weird as, say, Il Giasone or La Didone but it’s hardly what one would expect for the nuptials of Le Roi Soleil.  It’s clear from both the Prologue and the ending that Ercole is Louis but he’s also a most unlikeable character.  In this version of the Hercules story he’s in love with his son’s (Hyllo) girlfriend (Iole) and will stop at nothing to bed her including casting off his wife (Deianira), imprisoning his son and bumping off Iole’s father.  In the end he’s attacked by the spirits of various people he has wronged before succumbing to the trick with the centaur’s poisoned shirt.  He’s made immortal and paired off with Hebe in the heavens but it’s hardly a tale of kingly virtue or marital fidelity.  For good measure, along the way a good chunk of the Graeco-Roman pantheon make an appearance.

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