Handel: Theodora (2012)

This recording of Handel's penultimate oratorio, Theodora, taken from live performances at the 1996 Glyndebourne Festival, had previously been released in video format. The production, which was directed by Peter Sellars, and set in contemporary America, elicited a range of critical responses based on its visual imagery, but experienced as a purely aural phenomenon as it is here, the performance makes an overwhelming impact. The work includes some of the composer's most sublime music (it was among Handel's own favorites), ... Read More

This recording of Handel's penultimate oratorio, Theodora, taken from live performances at the 1996 Glyndebourne Festival, had previously been released in video format. The production, which was directed by Peter Sellars, and set in contemporary America, elicited a range of critical responses based on its visual imagery, but experienced as a purely aural phenomenon as it is here, the performance makes an overwhelming impact. The work includes some of the composer's most sublime music (it was among Handel's own favorites), and it has a libretto that generates considerable sympathy for its psychologically well-delineated characters; it seems like an absolutely natural candidate for presentation as an opera. William Christie works his magic with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, whose playing is gorgeous in its lyricism and refinement, as well as beautifully calibrated in its sensitivity to the drama being enacted, giving the performance a startling emotional urgency. The Glyndebourne Chorus is... Read Less