HOW LONG can it take for a flop to become a smash? In the case of one of George Frideric Handel’s oratorios, the answer is around 250 years. In February 1750 the composer turned 65. A few weeks later the London audience which, for almost four decades, he had regaled with operas in Italian and sacred choral works in English, snubbed his latest offering. For the opening night of “Theodora”, the theatre at Covent Garden was half-empty.
Luck was against him: a pair of minor earthquakes had kept music-lovers at home. But “Theodora” was anyway a tough sell—a stately, sombre drama about a virtuous Christian heroine, martyred for her faith under a despotic Roman governor. “Never mind,” the German-born maestro reportedly quipped of the disappointing house; “the music will sound better.”
By May of the same year, Handel had bounced back. Charity performances of his earlier oratorio, “Messiah”, established it as the hall-filling favourite it remains. Yet he had packed the long-neglected “Theodora” with ravishing music at least the equal of its more famous forerunner. The composer rated “He saw the lovely youth”, sung by a chorus of persecuted Christians, above “Hallelujah” in “Messiah”. The fearless and principled women—the heroine and her friend Irene—stand melodiously firm against the worst horrors of tyranny. Handel scattered the work with seemingly simple yet transcendently graceful arias, among them “As with rosy steps the morn”, “With darkness deep” and “Oh, that I on wings could rise”.
On January 31st the Royal Opera House will welcome “Theodora” back to the Covent Garden stage for the first time since that ill-starred debut. As Handel’s less-celebrated music-dramas returned to favour in the late 20th century, singers learned to love the oratorio’s ardour and tenderness. Its crowning triumph came in 1996, when the maverick director Peter Sellars staged it at the Glyndebourne Festival. Updating the action to an American military base, he drew performances of scorching intensity from his cast. Live, or on DVD, the production and singers, including Dawn Upshaw in the title role, shook spectators to their core. Julia Bullock, who will take the same part at Covent Garden, remembers that “it really changed my life”.
Katie Mitchell, the director of the new production, promises a feminist reading of a work that has the bravery of unbowed women at its heart. Handel’s settings, from a libretto by Thomas Morell, lend a spellbinding loveliness to this tale of conscience and resistance. Harry Bicket, the conductor, describes it as “heartfelt, introspective, achingly beautiful music”, about “people who are struggling with absolute moral problems”. Yet though it salutes the martyrs’ courage, “Theodora” also looks forward to a time beyond divisions of faith. “Liberty, and peace of mind/May sweetly harmonise mankind,” sings a sympathetic Roman soldier.
It has taken more than a quarter of a millennium. But with its enduring emotions, set to music that stops time, Handel’s grave and warm late masterpiece deserves its Covent Garden applause. ■