Theodora, Oratorio en trois actes de Georg Friedrich Haendel

Have always had a high appreciation for Handel and his music (though he is not quite one of my all-time favourite composers, Beethoven is my personal favourite), and it is very hard to not acknowledge his importance to the development of opera and oratorio. 'Theodora' is a beautiful dramatic oratorio, with some of his most exquisite music ever, such as for Theodora and the duets between Theodora and Didymus.

Of the three staged performances of 'Theodora' available, all three of them are above excellent. There is a preference for the more visually striking and more overwhelmingly powerful Sellars performance, which also had the advantage of William Christie's conducting, but this performance is on the same level as and perhaps slightly better than the Christof Loy production.

Visuals are uncompromisingly yet strikingly arresting, nothing is perplexing and nothing is distracting. The story and drama of the music do all the talking, with very few irrelevant or distasteful touches. While subtlety is not necessarily a strong suit (both Peter Sellars and Christof Loy had more restraint in the directing in the earlier staged performances and both are/were very controversial directors), dramatic intensity and poignancy are very much on display and the quality of the performances and musical values are to thank for that.

Musically, this 'Theodora' is outstanding, a musical feast. Not just the music and how it's performed transporting one to another place in beauty but it's powerful too. The orchestral playing has energy and emotional depth, as well as ravishing tone, while the chorus are mocking, rousingly steady and nuanced in characterisation and heavenly and beautifully balanced vocally. William Christie's (an early music expert, and of consistently high quality) conducting is remarkably sensitive and alert and every bit as refined and evocative as his conducting in the Sellers performance. The performance looks and sounds fantastic, with intricate video directing, very clear picture quality and sound that's crystalline and perfectly balanced.

Both Katherine Watson and Phillippe Jaroussky sound glorious vocally and characterise with constant dramatic engagement, both tense and poignant with lots of nobility. Jaroussky, who has always been consistently great as an actor and have always really liked his voice, is especially brilliant and lives and explore the text a little better than Watson does. Watson's gleaming beauty vocally is something one can listen to for hours. They blend beautifully together and very believable as lovers.

Callum Thorpe is a wonderfully repellent Valens, while Kressimir Spicer's sympathetic Septimus also captivates. Stefanie D'Oustrac's diction is not perfect, some strange vowel diphthong sounds here, but her powerful dramatic ability and flexible singing are.

Altogether, excellent performance. 9/10 Bethany Cox