Rating: 
Summary: Sellars, Upshaw, Hunt & Daniels Make Handel Relevant
Review: The Glyndborne production was an instant classic, and was revived twice after the festival to tour the UK and Europe--hardly a "controversial" production when all were in agreement that each aspect of this production, and each of Sellars' directorial choices, were perfectly balanced, bringing this rarely-performed but heartbreakingly relevant opera/oratorio to new light. (I remember there was even a rave review on the cover of the Los Angeles Times arts section, without any plan for the opera to be performed there.) Some of Sellars most successful productions have been with Handel (Giulio Cesare, Saul), and he and his usual team of designers (the design here is simple, strange and stunning) know exactly how to set these operas in modern America, utilizing all kinds of modern staging techniques (here, his trademark dance/gesture/semaphore performance mode reaches new heights of subtlety, expressivity and sublimity, totally in concert with the music and the drama), without in any way violating the integrity, meaning or complexity of the music. To the contrary, these artists take the music and it's meaning quite seriously, creating, with these incomparable singer/actors, complete characters in real situations, not contentless presentations of pretty music. Traditional "period" stagings of Handel often trivialize the material, barely tell the story, and hardly examine what the opera might actually be about (it turns out that Handel's work is intensely, relentlessly political). For example, the intensely effective simplicity of the presentation of the subculture of the "Christians" within the larger world of the "Romans" betrays a group of theater artists who know exactly what they are doing, and are putting their hearts and souls into their work--from the singing to the costuming to the lighting to the conducting.I'm not sure how the other reviewer saw Nixon in the characterization of the Roman governor (he seems to be an amalgamation of every Western leader of the last 25 years), but he seems to think that the outstanding performing has nothing to do with the "need I say more" production around the singers. In reality, every moment of every performance in every Sellars-directed opera has been carefully crafted through extensive collaboration between the director and the performers (besides the fact that he works with the same people again and again, like Upshaw and Hunt). These performances are astounding because the singers understand completely what this production of this opera is about. Great performances don't happen in a vacuum. Besides, the greatness of the singing is inextricably linked to the intensity and depth of the acting. What's also amazing about this video adaptation of a live performance is the sensitivity of the camera work. Other video versions of Sellars-directed operas have been choppy, shaky and jumpy, but the transition here are smooth, intelligent and seem carefully planned. The viewer is able to imagine what the live performance looked and felt like, but can experience it as a well-directed video piece as well. However you look at it, opera productions don't get much better than this, and we're very lucky that we have this well-made video for all of us who didn't get to see it live. I'm able to see Handel in a totally new way now, and realize he's got a lot more to say to 21st Century America, and in this case, post-September 11th America, than I had ever imagined.
Rating:
Summary: Handels Theodora
Review: THis is a truly lovely and moving performance that defeats all expectations
Theodora was written by Handel as an oratorio so English music lovers could get to hear music on a Sunday when protestant God botherers closed the theatres but it is an opera really
Peter Sellars' totally non authentic production sets the action (Romans persecuting early Christians) in the near future - Romans as prison guards in an imaginary Guantanamo Bay type police state America, execution by lethal injection and so on. So the usual distracting concept junk? A moralising piece of Christian propoaganda? Thought for the Day with some half way decent music? A coded tristesse about AIDS or what?
No - all my expectations were in the can in no time. This is an intensely moving and convincing performance which brings you face to face with the fact that we are all going to die. That one day the world will not have you in it but will somehow carry on anyway.
Upshaw is luminous, beautiful. Daniels does Handel's music proud.
If you've never seen an opera before, or never bothered with Handel's operas before, just see it. It will probably change your life. Your current partner had better like opera. If s/he doesn't - change your partner
Rating:
Summary: Oratorio as Opera Seria: Bold, Brilliant and Beautiful
Review: This one rattled the purists a little. Director Peter Sellars moved the story George Frideric Handel's Oratorio Theodora from ancient Rome to modern day America and made an opera out of it. That was a bold move. An Oratorio is basically a choral concert with soloists. This is anything but. It worked though. The work is about oppression, its causes and the effect on people on both sides. The staging enhances the drama and themes are always clear.
Valens' actions make his nature obvious. He's a small and vindictive shell determined to beat the world into believing he's more. The actions of Septimius and Didymus make it clear their loyalty to their nation stands in contrast with their contempt for Valens' cruelty. Theodora, Irene, and Didymus stand as people liberated by their choices. The music, the staging, and the people cast in their respective roles keep all this as clear as crystal. Frode Olsen's portrayal of the despot Valens is so concise that it was hard to rate his performance objectively. Tall, handsome and charismatic, he ends up being the perfect charlatan with no substance. His drunken tirade at the beginning of the second act is fabulous. Tenor Richard Croft excels as Septimius, the weaker willed of the two centurions. His portrayal is thought provoking to the point where it forces the viewer to question what he or she would do in a similar circumstance. Countertenor David Daniels is marvellous in the role of Didymus. His character is strong but gentle. It's something he conveys well, both with his body language and his singing. Dawn Upshaw is brilliant as Theodora. Like Didymus, her character is an example of the strongest being the most generous of spirit. Theodora is brave but though oppressed wishes harm to none. Dawn Upshaw has an inherently gentle quality in her voice. It suits this character well. She's a terrific actress as well, one who appears to feel everything she conveys. The one who stands above everyone else however is Lorraine Hunt. This lady is phenomenal. Her voice is full and strong in all ranges. Her 'mezzo' notes are deep and broad. Her high notes soar across the heavens. Her passion is magnificent. She lives every note she sings. Her performance here stands as one of the best I've seen in any genre. If her performance of "To Thee" at the beginning of Act III doesn't melt and rend your heart you haven't got one.
Handel was proud of this work. He felt it was his best. This performance of it makes a strong case for that sentiment. William Christie's tempi combine the best elements of the grace and strength in the music. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gives all that could be asked and more. Their playing is impeccable. The singing, as stated already, is fabulous.
The only complaint with this DVD lies with its chapter breakdowns. The menu is limited. Scenes rather than individual numbers divide the work. There's also only one audio track. These are small complaints though. The odd chapter divisions are a small price to pay for this performance. The audio track (two channel Dolby) is exceptional. Everything is crystal clear. This truly is the next best thing to seeing it live.
I first ran into "Theodora" about a dozen years ago. Like many I knew "Messiah" and some of the other favourites but knew nothing of the piece. An ad about a complete recording with a notation about this being Handel's "favourite of his works" caught my eye and after that a little voice wouldn't quit. It was the McGegan recording (which also featured Lorraine Hunt, that time as Theodora) and I bought it without having heard a note. It was a good decision. The beauty of this music is indescribable. Handel must have put every good idea he had and all his effort into it. "Messiah" may be the most famous (and that fame isn't unwarranted), but, for the best from Handel, this may be the place to go.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Handel singing in a controversial production
Review: This video faithfully captures the feeling of the Glyndebourne production. The duets sung by Dawn Upshaw and David Daniels are gorgeous highpoints but Lorraine Hunt (now Lieberson) steals the show with her great "As with rosy steps" and "Lord, to thee each night & day". Richard Croft (the 4th American in the 5 principal cast) is also excellent - clear and agile. The production is another matter - updated to the modern day and with the Roman governor as Richard Nixon. Need I say more? This video is worth having for the 4 musical performances noted above and for William Christie's sensitive conducting.
Rating:
Summary: The short guy is the top of the pops and that's that
Review: Those who don't understand why Peter Sellars is the world's greatest living theatre director would be advised to rent this. Now. Watch and learn. And see the rest of his peers shrink to the size of Wheat Chex.
Rating: 
Summary: To err is Sellars, although the singing is divine...
Review: You will find the reviewers for this DVD enormously enthusiastic for both the singing and the staging. I concur absolutely insofar as the singing is concerned, but the staging...?
Let me get the negative aspect of this review over with first. For me, this performance failed to work in spite of some extremely moving moments, BECAUSE of the dreadful staging. Not only did I loathe the idea of updating this oratorio to a modern American setting, but the gestures set by Sellars were unbelievable. The setting frankly doesn't make sense in terms of the libretto and the driving motivations of the characters. Handel's opera is not really about political oppression. Some people are apt to combine religious persecution and political oppression into one handy container, but that doesn't always work. "Theodora" is an oratorio, and a religious one at that. It's unequivocally religious in nature, and of all of Handel's oratorios this is the one that most resembles a mediæval miracle play. By this, I mean it focuses specifically upon the life of a saint who is captured, tortured, and ultimately killed for her faith. The oratorio is about the capture, torture, and execution of Christians, where the glory and uplifting nature is those saints' triumph in adversity. Again, I stress that it's religious persecution, not political, which is the centre of this dramatic oratorio, but Sellars largely ignores this to put his own spin on the setting. A modern American setting clearly doesn't provide the same - or even an apt - dramatic framework. Am I the only person who finds Sellars' way of cramming a work into a mold of his making tedious?
Picture, if you will, repeated arm movements of rigid clumsiness, coke cans, silly attempts to make the music "relevant" by using modern gimmicks or situations... The semaphoric gesturing was tedious and ludicrous. I was reminded of nothing so much as kindergarten children making hammy gestures to a performance of "Do the hokey-pokey". All kudos to the wonderful cast who did their best with it all, but Peter Sellars is clearly so busy being Peter-Sellars-the-avant-garde-director that he doesn't pay attention to what the music or plot are really demanding in terms of staging.
A modern setting might have worked - but not this one.
And it is bizarre that works which were DESIGNED and COMPOSED to be performed within a particular range of settings (there's plenty of room for innovation within those ranges, and yes, one can push the boundaries somewhat... sometimes...) are now being consistently "modernised", while the fever for movies set in ancient or fantastical times (Lord of the Rings; Troy; King Arthur; to name but a few) has never been higher. I ask myself why intelligent and creative directors aren't taking more advantage of this, and creating lush and ancient settings for these terrific oratorios and operas to give them precisely the fantastical ambience which would work so well with the music and be so visually appealing to audiences...
As I mentioned above, there were some moments in the DVD that were lovely. The wonderful Lorraine Hunt was outstanding in her role, and whenever she sang, Sellars seems to have had the sense to let her portray it quite simply, using mostly the tension of her body and her intense facial expressions to convey the vividness of what she sings.
It is with far more pleasure that I comment upon the singing and the glorious playing of the orchestra (wonderfully conducted by William Christie). Almost without flaw, the cast did a superb job with the music. David Daniels is a remarkable countertenor living up to all the promise of his earlier roles, and the sheer beauty of his voice is sure to win more and more fans. His is a mellow sound of great power, unusual for counter-tenors. Richard Croft is undoubtedly one of the finest tenors in the world, and both in slow arias requiring delicate spin and faster arias requiring fiendish control over the coloratura, he displays such mastery and beauty of tone that it is enough to make any listener weep with pleasure. Lorraine Hunt, as I've mentioned, is fabulous - she's singing in a wonderful tessitura in this role as Irene, and it gives her the chance to display the honey-laden texture of her voice as well as extraordinary sympathy for the emotions of this role. Utterly, utterly convincing...
Not so convincing is Dawn Upshaw. I found her... adequate, but not wonderful. This has been true for much of her work - those who are her fans will of course disagree with me. But I've never enjoyed her Handel or Mozart much. I always feel as if there are aspects, both vocally and stylistically, which elude her when it comes to classical and baroque period music. She's so very good in more modern music (her Messiaen is just ravishing! and Debussy brings out some wonderful things in her singing) that I wonder whether she's focused much more strongly on getting to the centre of such styles and worked much more upon burnishing her vocal powers to suit the more modern repertoire than upon finding the right timbre and vocal approach to Handel, Mozart, etc.
To hear exactly what I mean, listen to the unutterably glorious recording of this oratorio conducted by Paul McCreesh, in which Paul Agnew delights to the nth point of ravishment with his Septimius, Valens is superbly sung by Neal Davies, Didymus receives unutterably lovely singing by Robin Blaze, Susan Bickley does a good job (although admittedly not as fine as Lorraine Hunt) with Irene, and the almost unbearably superb Susan Gritton sings with enough vocal beauty and wonderful Handelian style to guarantee her a place in heaven. THERE... there we have the exact tone required to make "Angels ever bright and fair" come to exquisite life. There isn't a tone out of place. This indeed is singing of a high order, and I can without equivocation recommend the recording (Archiv 469 061-2).
In general, regarding this DVD, I can strongly recommend the singing. I would love to see a staging that is more respectful of the baroque music and isn't so silly... but the cast of this DVD would be difficult to better, except in the case of the Theodora herself.
Do be prepared, if you purchase this DVD, to watch it in several stages. Trying to watch all the way through may leave you, as it did me, exhausted by the lack of imaginative and appropriate staging and all those nursery-style arm movements.
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