O p er a
Theodora
(Glyndebourne)
Sellars misunderstood
Michael Tanner
Handel's Theodora, really an oratorio but not problematic to stage, was the great triumph of last year's Glyndebourne sea- son. It has been revived this year, but with a completely different cast, and a new con- ductor replacing William Christie. Peter Sellars, the Nigel Kennedy of directors, has been busy elsewhere, too, outraging the composer of Le Grand Macabre. He was at Glyndebourne for the first night, however, and presumably spent a reasonable length of time with the cast. Having seen the video of last year's produc- tion several times, and the touring compa- ny's performance in Norwich last November, I was struck this time by how precarious the success of those experiences was. For this time round a work, which can unquestionably be not only uplifting but wholly compelling, lapsed, for considerable stretches, into frightful tedium. Most of the new cast, distinguished as they are, simply had not understood what Sellars has to teach, which may well be a slow process: a commitment which is usually manifest in his work even when one is infuriated by it, as I have often been.
Underlying the failure of the work this time to grip and to move was the dogged conducting of Daniel Beckwith. He sound- ed as if he wished it was another work, and did his best to make it into one. Most debilitating were huge pauses at the end of arias, or between recitatives and arias, so long and so dead that, together with the lack of movement on stage, one had the impression of a series of 'numbers'. Theodora is certainly Handel's most inward work, with very few arias that aren't marked 'largo' or 'adagio', as Sellars points out in his superb essay on the subject in the programme book, a piece which is both remarkably and relevantly learned, and also penetrating on the nature of the opera's subject matter. Actually, I found it more moving than the work itself, this time round. But the inwardness is built into the music at least for most of the time, and romantically ponderous conducting, which Beckwith gave us, merely makes it seem monotonous. He seemed keen on eliciting pretty soupy sounds from his orchestra of period instruments too. Maybe he should conduct Manon Lescaut next time, and Gardiner should be in sprightly charge of Theodora.
With one major and one less major exception, the singers were disappointing, given how strong a team they looked on paper. The radiant exception was the young Canadian counter-tenor Daniel Tay- lor in the role of Didymus, the Roman sol- dier and closet Christian who is in love with the heroine. His marvellously beautiful voice has exactly the combination of purity and sensuality which Christopher Robson's, in the touring production, lacked. Perhaps it's going too far to say it's sensual, but it emphatically doesn't exclude the possibility of sex, as I find counter-tenor sounds usu- ally do. He also looks the part and acts with passion, in what is one of Handel's most complex roles. Torn between doing his soldierly duty and horror at the prospect of persecuting the group of whom his beloved is a fervent member, he himself joins the faith, announcing to his sceptical comrade Septimius (the less major excep- tion) in what was quite the most over- whelming moment of the evening, 'I am a Christian.' I never thought I would be so `It's too hot!' impressed by hearing those words. What makes their simple enunciation so powerful is that he doesn't for a moment ask himself the question, the first which would spring into anyone's mind now, whether he isn't more concerned to be close to Theodora than to worship her God. And Handel dis- arms us by presenting him as so transpar- ently sincere that we don't ask it either, a truly incredible feat.
Psychology has yet to make its poisonous debut, so far as this work goes. That is what makes the scene in which Theodora, lying in prison, is visited by Didymus, who has come to save her and at the same time express his love, so magnificently unam- biguous. There are no tensions for either of them between the intensity of their Chris- tian faith and the passion they have for one another. St Paul, one likes to think, would have been profoundly shocked by, uncom- prehending of, Theodora. It miraculously contrives to insert itself into the history of Christianity between Christ and that arch spiritual bureaucrat.
Unfortunately, that climactic scene, so much more moving than their joint martyr- dom, was less than revelatory because Joan Rodgers, Theodora, was hamming it up. I imagine that Sellars gets his singers to stop behaving as they normally would on stage, when he can. He failed here. Theodora's long soliloquy was replete with brow-smit- ing, and Didymus's naturalness consorted weirdly with it, so that the scene suggested something complicated in the wrong way. Still, Rodgers sang beautifully, though like everyone else on stage apart from Didymus and 'President' Valens, she was unintelligi- ble. The video has subtitles but doesn't need them with last year's cast. This pro- duction did need them, but didn't have them. Even recitatives were often hard to follow. Still more disappointing than Rodgers was Jean Rigby in the fascinating role of Irene, no contributor to the action but in some ways the spiritual centre of the whole work. Filmed silently, she would automatically be taken to be playing Norma. And even her singing suggested she would rather be performing `Casta diva' than 'As with rosy steps the Dawn'. The only thing one can say in favour of Rodgers's and Rigby's style is that their transpontine excesses made them a good team. But when one compared them with Taylor's and Paul Nilon's Romans, whose undemonstrative friendship was so touch- ing, the wrong set of polarities was estab- lished, the whole piece thrown askew.
The weight of intrusive theatricality was further misdistributed by the manual choreographies of the chorus, whose con- stant mysterious gesturings I found much more distracting this time. Maybe a pro- duction as skilful but elaborately mannered as this one can only survive a brief period of exposure, before it falls victim to its con- trivances. In such a case, videos serve a most valuable function, with their paradox- ical preservation of a unique occasion.
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