Last night at the Bristol Old Vic we had a lesson in how to stage an oratorio. Without the stiffness of a concert platform and yet not quite succumbing to the extravagant fancies of an opera the soloists live out the psychologies of real people without assuming the role of characters. With a nod and a wink to both secularists and feminists the newly gonged Tom Morris (in a short ‘Hello’ and preamble he suggests the ‘leader’ could be a ‘her’ as easily as a ‘him’) has whisked up a performance of Handel’s great work that gives due credit to the dramatic core of the piece, allowing a theatricality that the assembled talent successfully embrace. The ‘Messiah’ becomes ‘The Beloved’ and his followers, a crestfallen bunch of activists, rummage around looking for some meaning and direction following his death. The chorus, much loved by Handel who was very sweet on the English choral tradition, particularly following the waning of our love affair with Italian opera, here takes a role similar to that of the chorus in classical Greek theatre and is both participant and commentator.
Mr Morris has some fun with the Erebus Ensemble, at one point treating us to some surround-sound, having scattered them throughout the auditorium. This tight-knit and crisp outfit under Tom Williams are the beating heart of the piece and like any worthy performance leave one wanting more. The Hallelujah Chorus, one of Handel’s greatest hits, is in any age a show-stopper and the Erebus gold plate it and send it rattling around the gods. Equally worth the price of the ticket is, The English Concert under Harry Bicket, who might have been formed in order to play in that same auditorium. The very building seemed to glow and sigh with delighted recognition at the playing of this Baroque ensemble. If you can find fault I’ll meet you on Welshback – name your second.
The soloists, who come across as a selfless lot in this kind of thing, seemed to revel in the freedom bestowed on them by Mr Morris’s direction. Their singing of the highest standard we take as given, but on licence to move about and use their bodies find added shades of depth and meaning. Catherine Wynn-Rogers with her solo, “He was despised and rejected of men’, sets us on the road to self-questioning that leads to the idea that perhaps this is not about Him but about Us and our denial of our better selves. For her part, Julia Doyle finds in, I know that my redeemer liveth, a humanity that escapes the kind of sentimentality of the sugary Ave Maria ilk, that often bedevils sacred offerings.
Just a short word needs to be said about Nir Paldi whose non-speaking ‘Beloved’ gave a creditable account of a corpse reviving after a nasty ordeal. Some subtle lighting by Robert Casey and clever back projections from Rod Maclachlan, which suggested a range of things from ectoplasm to oozing and flowing blood, complete the theatrical experience.
This is a Bristol Prom, which is an accessible, at times thrilling and moving performance of one of the supreme examples of the genre. ★★★★★ Graham Wyles 7th April 2017
