Saul by Rene Jacobs

Handel’s oratorio Saul is filled with beautiful, rich deep music. The story is about King Saul from the Books of Samuel.

The production of this oratorio was orchestrated by Concert Koln under the direction of Rene Jacobs.

His orchestration is vibrant and dramatic. Their sound quality is very good. The chorus by RIAS-Kammerchor is very good also. All the singers are mature singers who sung really well.

American countertenor (of Yale and Cambridge graduate), Lawrence Zazzo who sung David has bright, clear and very warm beautiful voice. His David is bright, young and innocent. He is very good in this production except his last emotional solo singing with chorus “oh, fatal day!” when he mourns the deaths of Saul and his best friend, Jonathan. It doesn’t sound as dramatic as it intended, but I think it was the way of the music direction.

Jeremy Ovenden sung passionate Jonathan who dedicates the friendship of his lifetime to David. He has strong, very good tenor voice.

Rosemary Joshua has beautiful pure soprano voice and sung Jonathan’s sister and David’s love interest, Michal with gentle sweet sensibility.

Emma Bell as Merab, sister of Jonathan and Michal has thicker Soprano voice than Rosemary Joshua. Her character initially despises David for his lowly heritage as shepherd but comes to respect him for his virtuous qualities like Jonathan and Michal. She sung such aria,” Author of peace, who canst control” deeply.

Michael Slattery sung both High Priest and Witch which I couldn’t tell until I read it in the production note. He has finer, sensitive tenor voice. He sung High Priest with sensitive and warm tenderness.

Baritone-bass, Gidon Saks who sung Saul has very good strong authoritarian voice. But his singing doesn’t have enough sensibility or depth to express the dramatic changes of Saul’s psychological states, which are the very important key points in this oratorio. 

Except these minor issues, this production has all the right high quality. And yet, like Handel’s Rinald conducted by Harry Bicket with the similar reasons, this production also failed to move me deeply.  The orchestration in this production is dramatic as whole but lacking detailed dramatic expression and nuances. The music feels like it just scraped the surface.

The lack of depth in this production is not really the fault by the singers. I think they sung at their best. It is more faults by the musical direction, which is also out of focus at some degrees.

I can say that the many of the Handel’s opera and oratorio productions I’ve listened to in this past year are of high quality including this production. But there have been some frustrations at times also. Because you actually could hear great quality of Handel’s music underneath but yet, production itself sometimes does not live up to such greatness he initially created. In other words, more or less, there are degree of differences between the levels of his music and performers (I know I’m asking too much).

I read the interesting historical background of this oratorio in the production note. It explains that how Handel and his librettist partner, Charles Jennens were very careful about making this oratorio because England at that time was still in traumatic moments of its history for the changes from Catholic to Protestant by exiling or executing Catholic monarchies in their recent history.

The story of the rightful king of Israel replaced by God chosen non-lineage poor shepherd in this oratorio gave British population the political, social and religious ease and excuse for the guilt they had in their hierarchy society.

I once read the very interesting book written by the movie critic. It claimed that how movies for each country simply reflect what people at the times of these movies are made want to see themselves as in the mirror as collective will, not vise versa. 

He explained as one of the examples that the portraits of American heroes in the Western movies have changed over time from role model father figures to high-horse police figures to impulsive gun ho reflecting the peoples’ moods in the context of social and historical background at these times. These Western movies are hardly made any more in recent years because it’s harder for people to see themselves simply as “good guys” after the numerous wars and ever changing domestic and world situations.

I guess the music does the same. For Handel and Charles Jennesn, David does not appear as war hero and he does not kill Goliath with swiftness of his throwing stone (Jewish gun?) but he appears as a musician who tries to calm King Saul’s troubled and hostile soul with the beautiful music of his lyre. He’s peacemaker in this oratorio. And along with his friends, Jonathan, Michal, Merab and High Priest, he calls for peace and harmony in the virtue of God.

The Enchanted Island by William Christie

The Enchanted Island is the modern day pasticcio opera conducted by William Christie and orchestrated by Les Arts Florissants.

The genesis of this opera began when the general manager at Metropolitan Opera came up the crazy but fantastic idea of making new pasticcio opera using Baroque music. “Pasticcio” means mix up. It is the opera form consists of works by different composers, which was often created in Baroque period such as Vivaldi’s Bajazet.

So director, writer and composer, Jeremy Sams came up the brand new “mashed-up” opera based on Shakespeare’s Tempest “bumped up” by Mid Night Summer’s Dream. And he put new English libretto to the music that was taken from Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau and other Baroque opera composers.

The resulting product is spectacular Broadway style production jam-packed with wonderful Baroque music in the very American ways, which is the feast for eyes as much as entertaining for ears. The costumes, stage settings, acting directions and the music are all extravaganza, gorgeously elaborate and artistically well done.

They used the back wall as a kind of crystal ball-like projector, which showed the various cool graphics matching the late 19^th century retro-style pop art stage settings. They’re all richly artificial and artistically imaginative. This production is full of new and old mixed with all kinds of mismatch elements. And I didn’t realize until I watched this production that how much American entertainment shows are just like Baroque operas on the level of “going overboard”.

Prospero (David Daniels) looked more like Captain Nemo who is portrayed as sophisticated but brooding and self-centered nihilist. He casted his lover and sorceress, Sycorax (Joyce DiDonato) away into the dark-side of the island after he stole her island, her magical power, her servant Ariel and enslaving her son, Caliban (Luca Pisaroni). But more than above of all and anything else, he stole her heart.

The opera begins 16 years later and now Sycorax who is old, ugly and bitter after being used, robbed and dumped by her ex-lover, Prospero swears to take back her power and take revenge on him. So along with her gorilla-like son, Caliban, they switch the dragons’ blood in Prospero’s cell, which Arial (Danielle de Niese) would later use to shipwreck the ship carrying Prospero’s future son-in-law, Prince Fernando.

Arial’s only wish is to be free. In order to gain her freedom, she has to shipwreck Prince Fernando for Prospero’s beloved daughter, Miranda as he commanded for he’s old and ailing. But mistakenly, she shipwrecks the two sets of on-the-way-to-go honeymooners from Mid Night Summer’s Dream.

Arial keeps screwing things up by using the magic spells on everyone and making the two of just-got-married husbands fall in love with Miranda who acts more like flirtatious Pocahontas under the repeated spells. Caliban becomes the beast-lover for beautiful Helena (Déjà vu?) like the Beauty and the Beast but when the spell on her by his loving and sympathetic mother dissolved, it breaks his heart.

After being scolded by Prospero, Ariel desperately begs old and grumpy anti-human god, Neptune (Placid Domingo) to find Prince Fernando from vast ocean. Then she unspells everyone so each can be matched up with correct one.

But at the end, Miranda didn’t need magical spell to fall in love when Prince Fernando (Anthony Roth Costanzo) finally showed up at her shore.

Neptune also intervenes between Prospero and Sycorax. He takes the side of Sycorax and scolds Prospero for his cruelty towards her. He repents and begs her forgiveness that softens her heart with overwhelming emotion. She forgives him and they all sing, “Now bright new days are drawing” (Handel’s “Hallelujah”).

As singing goes, exquisite mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato and Placid Domingo stole the show.

Since the first time I listened to Vivaldi’s “Ercole su’l Termodonte”, Joyce DiDonato has impressed me every time I’ve listened to her. Besides some operas, I also listened to her album “Diva, Divo” which just won the Grammy. Her artistic craftsman-ship in her singing is just amazing.

This is the first time I watched her in an opera. Her acting is impressive as her singing. She’s one of these artists who can create the profound moment of powerful realism on the stage.  When she sung her first aria “Maybe soon, maybe now” (“Moriro, ma vendicata” in Handel’s Teseo) and the most moving aria in the opera, ”Hearts that love can all be broken” (Giovanni Battista Ferrandini), her singing and acting were too real.

In the interview, she said she played her character as a woman of 40’s or 50’s who lost her power after dedicating her life to everything else. 

Placid Domingo had only two short scenes but his voice scale alone is like God (and he plays god).

Perky teenager-like soprano, Danielle de Niese was perfect for Ariel whose character is the combination of Ariel, Puck and Tinkerbelle. She was very charming and funny; especially when she showed up at Neptune’s court in the primitive retro diving gears. It was also great when she finally gets her freedom, she gets fully dressed up for the occasion and turns Vivaldi’s agitation song “Agitata da due venti” into her jubilation song “Can you feel the heavens are reeling”.

Countertenor, David Daniels who played Prospero sung with strong good voice but as often I’ve felt with his singing, I was having hard time connecting with him emotionally.  

The four singers who sung the honeymooners are all good. The soprano singer who sung Miranda had beautiful bright voice with light tone but her singing was little shallowly.

Bass-baritone, Luca Pisaroni who played Caliban had the coolest character and outfit. He was the combined characters of King Kong + Planet of apes + Chewbacca + Frankenstein with over-the-top Kabuki make-up and the gorilla color with chain attached to his neck. He had very good strong bass-baritone voice. He sung, “Mother, my blood is freezing” (“Gelido in ogni vena” in Vivaldi’s Farnace) very well.

The whole production is filled with comical moments and one of these funniest moments is when Prince Fernando finally showed up at the end. He was the perfect picture of Prince Charming from the Disney fairly tales and more delightfully so when after everyone’s long-awaited anticipation, he started singing with the dream-like sweetest countertenor voice.

William Christie’s orchestration is refined and vibrant. The sound quality of his orchestration is very rich and beautiful in this production. He’s experimental but he’s neither perfectionist nor too detail-oriented like many other conductors. He also never over-interprets scores. He lets music play its natural course. His music is flexible, affectionate and always, passionate.

Handel would love this opera. I’m pretty certain if he was alive today, as much great artist as shrewd show business man he was, he would immigrate to United State (instead of moving to England) and create opera like this for himself.