Comparison Recordings of Handel, Theodora:
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Irene’s recitatives
and arias only)Avie AV0030
SACD
This DVD recording
is an irritating array of plusses and
minuses
First, the music. The
work was until recently rarely performed.
It seems to give the lie to the common
idea of Handel being fully appreciated
in his lifetime, for Theodora
work was his biggest public failure.
That said, among his musically aware
friends at the time it was much appreciated,
and is today recognised as one of his
finest achievements. Being an oratorio
and not an opera it is on a serious
subject and has no drama, being a succession
of arias which tie into one another
to tell a story.
This is a stupendous,
enchanting, engrossing performance.
It is difficult to imagine a more perfect
presentation of the music. Every member
of the cast is in excellent voice and
a superb singing actor. The instrumentalists
are likewise excellent and everyone
works together flawlessly. But...
The staging is problematical.
When Peter Sellars first did Mozart’s
Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni
in New York the startling but insightful
result was generally appreciated as
showing some previously unseen but valid
aspects of both works. In time he has
done other operas with varying reports
of success. In scene 1 of this staging
the President (the word is original
in the libretto) Valens of Antioch is
portrayed as the President of the United
States as shown by the insignia on the
uniforms of his bodyguards. He is cheered
by a chorus of Bad Americans who wear
garishly coloured sloppy clothes, all
wave cans of diet soft drinks, and cheer
mightily the gory death of any Christians
who decline to celebrate the Emperor’s
upcoming birthday with sacrifices in
the Pagan temples. Didymus, one of the
soldiers, is secretly a convert to Christianity
and tries to prevent the others from
carrying out the order, but is restrained,
threatened and forced into going along,
however reluctantly.
The President (Frode
Olsen) delivers his Act II recitative
in a drunken slur while waving a beer
can. He sobers up a little for his aria,
and the real excitement in this scene
is the chorus of Bad Americans mauling
the chorus of Good Americans, but does
music deserve to be treated like this?
A problem: in the US
an orange jump-suit does not denote
a military policeman but an escaped
prisoner, the current equivalent of
the old black and white stripes. Military
policemen more often wear black or dark
blue or green. This production, going
on the stage in 1996 was probably in
preparation several years earlier and
the political/religious scene in the
US has changed 180° for now it is the
Christian President and the Christians
who want to kill the Pagans and/or force
them to worship in government tax-supported
Christian churches! It is the Christians
who are rich and screaming for blood
and the Pagans who lead simple economically
and environmentally responsible lives.
Even more of a problem for U.S. audiences
is the idea of a big burly, handsome,
masculine man with a high voice. The
highest permitted masculine U.S. voice
is the Dwight Eisenhower/John Wayne
lipless tenor twang. Anything higher
is ludicrous and unacceptable. A lead
character dressed like a convict and
singing like a woman is distinctly un-American
and could lead to laughter and audience
walk-out, at the worst. At the best
it simply exaggerates the absurdity
of the scenario which is already a little
absurd. The President’s implied heart
attack in the opening scene and his
miraculous resurrection after the application
of high-tech medicine, nowhere justified
by either the text or the music, is
played for laughs and in my opinion
gets things going in exactly the wrong
direction.
From here on we move
to the Good Americans who are simply
pious and dressed in modest clothes
and who reject "prosperity"
(the word is original in the libretto),
most especially Theodora, very beautifully
sung by American soprano Dawn Upshaw,
who removes her modest jewellery in
the course of an aria in which she forswears
all earthly glamour and dedicates her
life to simple faith. She is supported
in her resolve by Irene, sung with overwhelming
power and beauty by the magnificent
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
But, sure enough, there’s
dirty work afoot. The soldiers rush
in and suppress the meeting, seizing
Theodora as an example and condemn her
to be taken to the Temple of Venus (no
doubt in Las Vegas or Salt Lake City)
to be forced to work as a divine prostitute
(the "fate worse than death"
in the libretto) for a time before she
is killed. Didymus tries to rescue her,
and after much struggle they are both
executed, on stage, after singing a
duet pledging eternal love. In this
performance, the Bad Americans sing
the final Christian chorus, hinting
that perhaps the double sacrifice has
converted them. Future echoes of Berlioz
and Verdi!
The packaging on this
European issue is awful. Not only do
we not get a libretto, we don’t even
get an aria list, only a chapter list
which doesn’t correspond with the main
musical selections but roughly corresponds
to every other musical selection.
Fortunately, some Good Americans at
Stanford University have provided a
public domain libretto for this public
domain work:
http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/theodora.htm
Even though the playing
time is the same, which surely means
there aren’t any extra goodies on the
disk, the cover on the U.S. region 1
edition is different, but I have no
way of knowing whether the insides of
the cover booklet are any better than
this European edition. There is a very
brief synopsis and a few comments on
the history of the work and one small
production still on the cover, which
is otherwise an ugly shade of hot pink,
all in English only, even though this
disk is being sold everywhere in the
world except in the USA. Go figure.
"This disk is
copy protected" is marked on the
sleeve, and, purely for the sake of
science, I tried to open it with one
of the popular DVD "backup"
programs, and, sure enough, the backup
failed. Newer software may not be so
easily defeated. I experienced no difficulty
in playing this disk, nor was there
any apparent degradation in sound or
picture quality.
The SACD solo
recital disk by Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson
featuring her part from Theodora
is slightly clearer and more intensely
sung since she is not distracted by
the motions and gestures of the staging,
which, on the other hand, add power
and immediacy to her singing. The few
years elapsing have if anything helped
her voice and enriched her performance.
After you’ve enjoyed the DVD, you may
want to buy that one, too.
Sound recording quality
is full range, clear, and dynamic, with
a strong forward focus when played in
surround sound. There is no audience
noise — perhaps no audience present
during the recording — the applause
and curtain calls at the end possibly
dubbed in from another, live, performance.
The very clear picture is original video,
not film; the presumed PAL/NTSC conversion
may be responsible for some slight colour
barring and jumping during rapid movement,
but you won’t notice that unless you’re
really looking for it, you’ll be too
absorbed in this magnificent performance.
But keep in mind that this is a long,
solemn, sombre, depressing show; best
watch it in sections and when you’re
feeling strong.
Paul Shoemaker
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/William
Christie 
WARNER
MUSIC VISION 0630-15481-2 [207.00]
