Handel’s “Theodora” by William Christie

I watched Handel’s “Theodora” conducted by William Christie. It’s not Handel’s best work but as always, his music has wonderful quality to be listened to.

The opening scene of this production was confusing. It was set in 80’s America and there were people with Coke cans & soldiers with machine guns. The politician-like man started to sing in English about Roman gods. I gave up.

So I checked and found out this is not Handel’s opera, but it’s his oratorio. They made the complete opera out of the oratorio about the Roman persecution of Christians (And they’ll be executed not by lions in coliseum but by lethal injection may be in Texas).

By watching this production, one thing is very clear. Peter Sellers (in “Pink Panther”) is not very good stage director. He put up rather cheep and strange set and acting directions. I felt sorry for the singers because their musical quality was far beyond these stage directions. Probably the camera editing was the worst of all. It constantly changed between singers’ close ups, long shots and multiple camera angles as making TV show. He seemed does not understand the beauty of stage production, which is very different from TV.

William Christie’s orchestration was refined, rich and passionate.

David Daniels sung with the voice range lays somewhere between Nero and Rinaldo. He was very good in this production. I liked his “The raptured soul” which makes you no wonder why he’s popular.

Richard Croft became my favorite tenor since “Ariondante”. I love his “Descend kind pity” out of all the songs in this oratorio. He really has very beautiful tenor voice, which has probably immediate appeal to even non-Classical listeners. His singing in this production was amazingly moving. Not only that, his sensitive acting looked so real and impressively good. It did not look like he was acting at all.

Dawn Upshow has very beautiful soprano voice. But it might be just my personal taste; her voice was little light and shallowly for my liking.

I loved mezzo-soprano, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s singing throughout the production. Her beautiful voice has such emotional weight and dramatic depth. Her acting was very moving and touching also. Especially I loved her “Defend her Heaven!”