Handel: Jephtha      Westminster Abbey 24 June 1997

Emman Kirkby    Iphis
Della Jones     Storge
Michael Chance  Hamor
Nigel Robson    Jephtha
David Wilson-Johnson
                Zebul

Martin Neary    Conductor

Choir of Westminster Abbey
Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment

Jephtha is yet another Handel oratorio that cries out for a theatrical
performance. Like Theodora, it ends with the mystic union of a couple who
get off on not having sex. But its core theme is the horrible fascination
of the power to kill (represented by human sacrifice) rather than the quest
for pleasure uncompromised by conformity.

This performance was about as far from theatrical as you could get, though.
A benefit for the Handel House fund, it was done in the antechapel of the
Abbey in cathedral style.

The chorus, who did well with some fine polyphonic numbers but lacked
drama, were quite at home in the resonant space, as they sing regularly on
the other side of the screen. And Emma Kirkby and Michael Chance both have
variants of the choirboy voice developed to make the most of an echoing
cathedral acoustic. They made an elegant romantic couple. David
Wilson-Johnson was also vocally well Anglican, though his CV in the
programme suggests that he mainly sings opera.

Unfortunately, Della Jones and Nigel Robson didn't come off so well from
the unflattering acoustic. Della's voice seems to have gone the way of
Gwyneth's, though she also shares her stage presence and attack. I think
that's the word -- the character is called Storge, "mother love", in the
sense of the tiger defending her cub. Robson didn't seem to have any voice
at all, and had some haywire pitches, but he delivered a splendidly
dramatic performance anyway. There were a few sniffles for "Waft her,
angels", Jephtha's sentimental mourning for the daughter he's about to
sacrifice through his stiff-necked obsession with keeping his word.

The aria of the angel who tells Jephtha of the loophole in his vow -- he
can dedicate his daughter as a virgin instead of killing her -- was sung in
unison by the boys in the choir, though the preceding recitative was sung
by a solo boy.

There was a fine turnout of the great and good. It struck me that, in
England, Handel has almost returned to being the musical equivalent of
Shakespeare that he became soon after his death. (People stand up for the
Hallelujah Chorus, for instance.) Handel's best music, of which there is
some in Jephtha, always seems familiar because it's so exactly right for
its emotional meaning. It's as if you'd known it all your life. On the
other hand, there are bits of Handel most middle class English people have
known all their lives, and which they seem approach in a spirit of
reverence that risks missing out on the music's power of imagination. This
performance (except possibly for Nigel Robson) erred on the side of
reverence, but I'm beginning to think that Handel at his best is close to
performance-proof.