Opera Today

Although the production raised questions at times, with what some purists may decry as gimmicks, the performance overall presented a dark and searching exploration of the themes of power, age, love and loss. Here was a highly enjoyable and memorable examination of the human condition.

Taking its narrative from the First Book of Samuel, Handel’s oratorio – first performed in 1739 – explores the descent of King Saul, where respect for young David (who has just slain Goliath) rapidly turns to hateful jealousy of the younger man’s popularity. Glyndebourne’s revival of Barrie Kosky’s 2015 production for the Festival brought more than a streak of tragedy: here was an emotionally compelling performance full of instrumental and vocal colour.

Countertenor Iestyn Davies took the role of David, who alongside the lustrous singing of tenor Allan Clayton – who played Jonathan, King Saul’s son – provided the soloistic highlights of the evening. In the First Act, Davies provided moments of genuinely heart-stopping beauty, the lyrical power of his voice evident when the orchestra suddenly cut out, leaving the countertenor sustaining a single note on a crescendo. With masterly awareness of dynamics coupled with a silky upper register, Davies displayed a vocal control few can match. Captivating. Allan Clayton was similarly expressive, again especially striking when the texture was most exposed; there were moments when the orchestra fell silent, leaving Clayton singing quietly alone, his voice full of lyrical warmth. This was music-making of the most controlled, sensitive and nuanced degree.

Topping off a superb cast, German baritone Markus Brück played King Saul in what is his Glyndebourne debut, alongside Handelian soprano Karina Gauvin as Merab, Saul’s daughter. Brück’s voice was richly expressive, bringing out the darker colours in this most troubled of characters. Although the libretto, in my eyes at least, hardly portrays a character of great psychological complexity – the King declines to madness within the blink of an eye, hardly the nuanced depiction of madness and decline in Shakespeare’s King Lear – Brück presented a character full of emotional contrasts with a voice similarly replete with juxtaposing colours. Gauvin was equally impressive, her duet with Davies at the opening of Act 3 full of urgency.

Also in particularly fine form were The Glyndebourne Chorus, whose voices provided both musical and dramatic delight; at the point in which Saul is confronting his madness explicitly, The Chorus stride right up to the edge of the stage, feet from the audience, their powerful singing dominating the space in an effective recreation of the voices swirling through the monarch’s mind. With Kosky’s creative use of space and The Chorus’s dramatic projection of their voices, this was a supreme example of how imaginative production and performance can combine to create the most vivid portrayal of a text. The Glyndebourne Chorus’s forceful fortissimo singing and vivid characterisation were one of the highlights of the evening.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Handel expert Laurence Cummings were also brimming with energy. The opening was full of bounce, whilst a consistently transparent texture allowed us to hear every delightful imitation in Handel’s intricate scoring. One of Saul’s unique points is its orchestration, with trombones evoking sackbuts, playing alongside kettledrums (which Handel borrowed from the Tower of London, no less), harp and carillon (a keyboard-glockenspiel). The score is therefore packed to the brim with colour, and Cummings made plentiful use of this, pointedly emphasising specific moments of instrumental contrast, most notably the tenderness of a theorbo (played by David Miller) accompanying the scene in which a declining Saul is cradled by Allan Clayton’s Jonathan.

Michal (Anna Devin) and dancers

The production itself memorably played on the theme of light and dark, with effective use of stage lighting; the spotlight at the very start gently grew so as to expose the severed head of Goliath on stage, whilst later on the all-white tablecloths that dominated the stage dazzled the audience with light, perhaps a comment on Saul’s growing emotional blindness. A production highlight was the set for the final act, where hundreds of candles lined the stage, only to be gently extinguished by the chorus; this warm orange glow slowly reduced to darkness, Kosky’s staging here was a poignant moment of visual poetry.

However, if I am to make any criticism of this fine evening, it was that at times the production gave way to what some purists might decry as gimmickry; six dancers would rush onto the stage, sometimes after moments of exquisite emotional tenderness, and start gyrating at the edge of the stage. Although it brought a few laughs from the audience, I wondered whether the frequency of these interruptions was necessary, with the dancers breaking the flow of the narrative and wrecking the emotional tenderness that made many of the scenes so striking. Similarly distracting was the regularity of the shrieks and screams from the chorus, which – although a superb way of evoking the distress and the very humanity of the characters onstage – came so frequently that they detracted from their power. One scream would be striking, but ten or eleven become plain distractions.

Despite this small criticism, to the production’s credit, Kosky’s minimalism brought us back to the world of Ancient Greek tragedy, most appropriate for this Lear-like narrative; in having minimal distractions on stage in the way of set design, Kosky allowed us to focus on the human beings that are at the centre of this tragedy. Such an exposed stage drew greater sympathy from the audience because, when Saul was sat alone with just his closest family near him, his isolation was made painfully clear. Kosky appears to find that the inherent drama in Handel’s oratorios – even if they are not strictly operas, they are operatic by nature – is suited to the similarly dramatic nature of Greek theatre.[*] The influence of Greek Tragedy reminds us that, whilst this story is taken from the Bible, there are numerous parallels to Tragic plays and theatre in its progression, something Kosky’s production magnified with great effect.

An evening full of horror, delight, humour and despair all at once, this was an emotionally compelling and beautifully-performed evening. They say that a tragic story can be cathartic; no wonder everyone emerged from the theatre so full of life. An excellent evening.

Jack Pepper [†]