Four essential features have historically identified the oratorio: its religious and edifying subject matter; its non-staged interpretation; the frequent presence of choirs; and the preferential use of the vernacular language. Since, as in opera, in the Baroque (which saw the birth of both simultaneously) its plots advanced through recitatives and arias, the oratorio was forced to mark its own profile in another way: no one knew this better than George Frideric Handel in his double role as entrepreneur and composer. When the London aristocracy grew tired of Italian opera and his business began to show losses, he managed to win them back with a similar but different genre, modeled on English texts that everyone could understand, which in turn encouraged other social strata to go to the theatres to hear the new oratorios. About to turn 65, which today we consider the symbolic age of retirement, the musician gave birth to what is probably his most personal work and to which he apparently felt a very special attachment: Theodora. Then, the virtuous story (Handel said) The play by this visionary Christian martyr in a London terrified by earthquakes was not a success; today, however, it fills and astonishes theatres throughout the world.
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This is possible because, for at least three decades, it has become increasingly fashionable to distort one of the idiosyncratic elements of oratorio – its non-theatrical nature – by presenting it as if it were an opera: with sets, costumes, lighting and stage movement. There are, of course, those who tear their clothes at what they see as almost a sacrilege, but we are already very far from those centuries-old prohibitions of representing biblical or religious themes in a theatre, whose shadow even reached the Salome by Oscar Wilde at the beginning of the last century. The question is rather whether Handel in particular would have composed his oratorios differently if they had naturally been destined for the very stage where his operas were performed.
In her day, the story of this visionary martyr was not a success. Today, however, it fills theaters and causes amazement.
If you know a little about them, there is only one answer: yes, since the stage imposes its own inevitable tyrannies. But does that prevent a modern transfer that was once impossible? In light of a stage jurisprudence that is already more than remarkable, we must surrender to the evidence and not close the door to a practice that has given us great shows: to limit ourselves to Handel, the multi-award-winning Saul (a colourful farce at the beginning, a black tragedy at the end) that Barrie Kosky premiered at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2015; or, much earlier, in 1996, and at this same British festival, the already historic staging of Theodora signed by Peter Sellars, which served to break down many prejudices and win over a legion of followers; or, between both, the Jephtha which was directed in 2003 in Cardiff, at the Welsh National Opera, by Katie Mitchell, the same director chosen by the Teatro Real to present it on stage for the first time in Spain Theodoraa production originally premiered at the Royal Opera House in London in 2022 (and it was precisely at the Theatre Royal, in Covent Garden, where Handel had originally presented his oratorio in 1750).
That Theodora The dramatic substance of the play almost cries out for its stage treatment, as was once again confirmed by Christof Loy’s proposal (a happily regular presence at the Teatro Real) for the Salzburg Festival in 2009, which was musically directed by Ivor Bolton, who will also direct Mitchell’s production in Madrid, where it will be seen from 11 to 23 November.
All three productions abandon the original Antioch and the 4th century to bring the action to the present day. If Sellars—political and spiritual in equal parts—had Theodora and Didymus die tied to stretchers after receiving a lethal injection, Loy only needed a handful of chairs as the only scenery to build an almost existentialist drama, closed housesKatie Mitchell, in line with one of the main hallmarks of her work, and taking advantage of the enormous tragic potential of her heroine, opts for a feminist reading: this summer, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, she revived her production of Pelleas and Mélisande adapting it, according to her own confession, to the post-Me Too, reinforcing the polarity between female victim and male abusers. Her approach has its roots in the literary work (The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymus1687) which inspired Thomas Morell, Handel’s librettist, written by the scientist Robert Boyle, a staunch defender of women’s rights and autonomy, and whose ideas echo the demands of Aphra Behn or, somewhat later, Mary Astell or Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, pioneering figures of British feminism.
Mitchell decides to move the action to a modern embassy, with three sliding sets that can be seen successively or simultaneously: a large kitchen (where Theodora and Irene serve while secretly preparing bombs), a lounge and, not by whim, but by the demands of the script, since the protagonist has been forced —in what Mitchell sees as an unmistakably misogynistic gesture— to prostitute herself in a brothel, a bed and a strip club dominated by the color red; impossible to forget Theodora singing her aria With Darkness Deep, as is My Woe while two prostitutes dance and sway beside him on two bars.
When performed, oratorios cease to be “operas of the mind” or imagined differently by each of us once the stage director eliminates all ambiguity and imposes his own criteria. Thus, Katie Mitchell even decides to upset the ending and save her heroine, whom she sees not only as a person of strong convictions, but also, and above all, of action: enough of passive women in the hands of cruel men who pull the strings of power. In this way, she ignores, of course, the original libretto, but this is not the place to reveal the details of how and why. Much better to see them at the Teatro Real in November and thus become part of the increasingly large chorus of enthusiastic admirers of Theodoraa quasi-testamentary work —Spätstil in its purest form—, free, reflective, deep, intimate, tragic (that the final choruses of each of its three parts, not acts, are in D minor, F minor and G minor is a fact as unusual as it is revealing) and, above all, an oratorio with an irresistible theatrical soul.
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