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After an overture played on baroque period instruments, this opera about the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire opens with a televised press conference by the business-suited Roman governor of Antioch. This paradox epitomizes a bold and spectacularly successful interpretation that merges modern visuals with 18th-century music performed in period style. The music (glorious, vintage Handel) is entrusted to William Christie, one of the most respected living conductors of early music. His phenomenal cast is musically and theatrically right on target. The staging, by Peter Sellars, has Roman legionaries garbed as a SWAT team with automatic weapons. The Roman governor is a totally political animal with a drinking problem. Dawn Upshaw and the amazing David Daniels, Christian victims, are executed not in a pit of lions but strapped to tables for lethal injections. This treatment not only gives dramatic impact to music that began life as an oratorio; it universalizes the subject into an indictment of any government that persecutes minorities. --Joe McLellan
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