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.