Theodora at Teatro Real: Joyce DiDonato went down a bomb
DiDonato's voice is like listening to silver leaves falling gently into a stream.
Joyce DiDonato went down a bomb in Teatro Real Madrid’s Theodora. Actually, she made a bomb. Brown Semtex sticks, wirey colour-coded connector things, gaffer tape, handled with surgical gloves, all the while deftly manipulating pliers. With Julia Bullock helping out. What a pair of unlikely bomb makers.
In town at the wonderful Spanish opera house for G F Handel’s Theodora, originally an oratorio written towards the end of his composing career.
Bullock, a stellar soprano, sang Theodora, American mezzo, DiDonato, Irene, her close friend. Counter tenor, Iestyn Davies was the hero, Didymus. This was a trio of principals to die for.
They were ably egged on by British Tenor, Ed Lyon as Septimus and British Bass, Callum Thorpe as the evil and intransigent enforcer, Valens.
Maestro Ivor Bolton, a legendary interpreter of Baroque music, Musical Director of Teatro Real, was in the pit. When the production played at Covent Garden, Harry Bicket, English Concert legend, conducted. No-one could ask for better Handel interpreters than the Bolton/Bicket duo.
Director, Katie Mitchell was responsible for this fully staged version of one of Handel’s finest and most moving works, a joint production with London’s Royal Opera House. I’ve seen it in London and in Madrid.
I would battle up the Amazon to Manaus Opera House if they ever staged the production there. It’s that good! Fortunately, as it’s available on Medici TV, alligator and Piranha avoidance techniques will not be required.
Mitchell’s genius is to transform Handel’s worthy oratorio into an onstage thriller without losing any of the seriousness of the narrative and translate the political tensions of religiously divided ancient Rome to the present day.
Boring old Baroque Handel? Aficionados only? Theodora, in Mitchell’s version is a ripping yarn, delivered at pace, with every recitative dramatically vigorous, each aria penetrating the soul. I defy any member of the audience to remain disengaged from the tragic drama unfolding in front of their eyes.
The oratorio, Handel’s favourite, is set in fourth-century Rome. The backdrop is the conflict between the rising religion of Christianity, threatening the Roman gods.
Emperor Diocletian orders all citizens, on pain of death, to make sacrifices to Roman goddesses. His enforcer is Valens, in this production an Ambassador. Theodora and Irene are Christians.
Obey, or become martyrs? Theodora refuses to worship and is sentenced to become a prostitute in the temple of Venus. A fate worse than death.
She is helped by her lover Didymus, an army officer, secretly drawn to the Christian faith. In a clothes swap Theodora escapes leaving Didymus to face Valens’ rage.
Learning her lover is in danger Theodora returns to plead with Valens. Theodora and Didymus are condemned to death. Irene leads the fellow Christians in prayer. An excellent, full synopsis of the original from Brighton Early Music Festival can be found here.
Not what happened in Madrid, or Covent Garden. Goodies were victorious! Huzzah!
The setting is the present day, in the embassy of a sleazy, male dominated regime. A smell of mafiosi, drug cartels, gun runners.
The Christians have infiltrated the staff. They are political activists. Hence Theodora and Irene’s bomb-making in the kitchen. “Don’t put the bomb in the oven, Irene”!
The set is divided into three rooms that slide across stage as scene changes require. Central, is a formal reception area, stage left is the kitchen with bombe-surprise on the menu. Stage right is a plush red brothel equipped with pole dancing kit and salacious sating draped bed to which Theodora is banished. She dons a tarty, glittery dress and a long white-blonde wig.
Mitchell’s approach was probing, interrogative and compelling. Librettist, Thomas Morell’s words are not distorted in any way. Mitchell simply exploits their full meaning and translates that through microscopically accurate direction.
Every gesture follows the lead of the words. Even down to emphasis being coupled with the vigorous chopping of vegetables in that kitchen.
There was never a dull moment. In her seminal 2009 book, The Director’s Craft, Mitchell sets out her stall. The audience is being told a story by every member of the cast. Direction cannot be confined to principals dominating the stage with a speech, aria, or recitative.
The stage is a semblance of real life, where no action goes unheeded. Every performer onstage has a task to perform. The embassy kitchen in Theodora bustled. Blocking rehearsal notes must have put global “Post It” supplies in jeopardy.
I think audiences shy away from Handel because his work is traditionally performed in declamatory style, lacking the drama the music and words intend. Mitchell’s approach can best be described as visceral. The drama is back.
Not least her denouement where the Christians do not accept the death sentence meekly, but rise up in the closing moments in a slo-mo sequence, and finish off their oppressors. Not with the bomb, but an assortment of concealed guns and sharp kitchen implements.
The music finds Handel at his most sublime. I shall focus on my very favourite aria, Lord, to Thee, each night and day. Tough words in the circumstances. It is about the need never to lose faith – “Strong in hope, we sing and pray.”
In the reprises, DiDonato introduced her own cadenzas. Her voice descended to a pianissimo whisper. Musical similes are often exaggerated, but here goes nothing. This was like listening to sliver leaves falling gently into a stream.
Bolton, focusing on DiDonato’s every semiquaver, lowered his baton and watched, eagle eyed, until she gave the slightest of cues that the cadenza was over, seamlessly raised the stick and back came the orchestra. Unforgettable privilege to be in the audience.
And Another Thing!
The Holy Grail is coming home. To Temple Church, in the heart of London’s Inns of Court, whose 1185 round church “is Jerusalem in England”, as Master of Temple, the ever-enthusiastic Robin Griffith-Jones only occasionally tires of telling.
Dan Brown, eat your heart out! Part of Brown’s The Da Vinci Code film may have been set in Temple Church. And Griffith-Jones did make hay with a series of talks and a book, Secrets of the Temple in its wake. But Brown’s Grail ended up in Rosslyn Chapel, outside Edinburgh.
On 3 and 4 April, Temple Music Foundation is staking its claim on the icon, a performance of the Overture and Act III of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal in Temple Church. Fully staged! A fitting curtain raiser to Holy Week. Palm Sunday is 13 April.
This is a hugely ambitious project. How on earth do you present even only the final act of a work whose scale has challenged many an opera house in a church, with an orchestra in the Round at the west end and a long, elevated, specially constructed stage stretching the length of the nave to the altar at the east?
Temple has form in pulling off the impossible. Stephen Layton’s 2003 seven hour ‘through the night’ vigil by Sir John Tavener, The Veil of the Temple was a stunning success.
Then, we had two sons who were Temple choristers and the privilege of being part of that spectacular epic and its complex rehearsal process has never dulled.
Time for a follow=up. The Master: “We have wanted to do it, for years: the Grail Knights in Wagner's source, von Eschenbach’s Perzival, are ‘Templeisen’; and the Knights’ Hall at the Bayreuth premiere, 1882, was a Romanesque Rotunda, uncannily like our own.
(Our Round Church – the Templars’ chapter-house – was new when von Eschenbach, c. 1200, envisioned his Templeisen and their Hall.) The opera’s last scene could have been written with us in mind. It will be an unforgettable production.”
Directing is Julia Burbach, nominated for “Best Newcomer” category at the 2019 International Opera Awards. She has ranged across European houses and was a resident Staff Director at London’s Royal Opera House from 2015 -2021.
When I Zoomed with her Burbach was full of plans to make audience engaging use of the awkward performance space. I promised no spoilers.
I reviewed her Edmea at Wexford in 2021. Loved it.
“This was a magnificent production created by Julia Burbach, Director and Cécile Trémolières, Set and Costume Designer.
Burbach presented two-layered worlds. The one in which Edmea lived and the spirit world of the river where she lost her memory after jumping in to escape…..The effect of creating another dimension was very real.”
Bodes well for recreating a Wagner masterpiece.
I recommend booking early. Tickets will fly from shelves. Supportive donations will secure early booking. I’ve already “chipped in”. You should, too. More updates will follow as rehearsals draw near.