Deborah York          Angel
David Wilson-Johnson  Lucifer
Emma Kirkby           Mary Magdalene
Susan Bickley         Mary Cleophas
Paul Agnew            St John

Ivor Bolton           Conductor

St James's Baroque Players

London's glut of festivals in early June regularly has two treats for Handel
lovers, one in the Covent Garden Festival and the other in the Lufthansa
Festival. This year the two festivals interestingly delivered excellent
performances Handel's first and last oratorios within a week. Handel wrote
La Resurrezione in Rome at the age of twenty three, in Italian for a
Catholic audience at Easter, and Jephtha in London more than fifty years
later, in English for commercial production for a mainly Anglican audience.

The differences are obvious: the music of La Resurrezione is straightforward
Italian baroque, though already with Handel's muscular sense of harmonic
development, while that of Jephtha is expressive in a way that looks forward
to romanticism. Likewise with the themes and plots: La Resurrezione is a
statement of faith and joy in the resurrection of Christ, in a traditional
format similar to a mediaeval mystery play, with a bumptious devil and
mourning women; in Jephtha the drama is a conflict within an individual
which is resolved, still problematically, by divine intervention in a way
which looks to contemporary philosophical debates.

But both works, and almost every other oratorio Handel wrote, share an
outstanding sense of drama and emotional sympathy. "Caro figlio", the aria
in which St John recounts the mourning of Mary, the mother of Jesus, for her
dead son, has the same poignancy as "Waft her, angels", Jephtha's prayer for
the daughter he is about to sacrifice, if not its musical sophistication.

The first performance of La Resurrezione had a much more elaborate setting
than any of Handel's London oratorios. The concert version at St John's,
Smith Square, that opened the Lufthansa Festival was pure stand-and-deliver,
but its dramatic impact was impossible to miss.

The first part consists of comic sparring between the angel who opens up
hell after the resurrection of Christ and a gruff devil who is the first in
a long line of Handelian thuggish idiots. The second part is the heartbroken
reaction to the crucifixion by Mary Magdalene and Mary Cleophas, with St
John comforting them with Jesus' promise that he will rise again. The angel
and Lucifer then overhear Mary Magdalene's account of her meeting with the
risen Christ in the garden, and the devil goes fizzling back to hell. The
women tell St John about the resurrection and all praise God.

Deborah York (who seems to have a golden glow about her) sang stylishly as
the angel. Emma Kirkby, not in particularly good voice tonight, was a bit
too sweet as Mary Magdalene, but Susan Bickley was expressive and forceful
as Mary Cleophas. Paul Agnew sang beautifully, but was a bit monotone as St
John. David Wilson-Johnson, again, got a lot of fun from Lucifer's music,
which is almost guaranteed to make listeners grin with its depiction of
stupidity.

St James's Baroque Players don't have the polish or complexity of Harry
Christophers' ensemble, but they were accurate and spirited under Ivor
Bolton's direction. The natural brass were particularly stirring and well
tuned.

Regards,

Helen