Handel Saul oratorio (tagged opera here) to libretto by Charles Jennens. Directed 2021 by Claus Guth at the Theater and der Wien. Stars Florean Boesch (Saul), Jake Arditti (David), Anna Prohaska (Merab), Giulia Semenzato (Michal), Rupert Charlesworth (Jonathan), David Webb (Abner / High Priest / Doeg), Rafał Tomkiewicz (Witch of Endor), and Andrew Morstein (Amalekite). Christopher Moulds conducts the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Arnold Schoenberg Chor (Chorus Master Erwin Ortner). Set and costume design by Christian Schmidt; lighting design by Bernd Purkrabek; choreography by Ramses Sigl; video design by Arian Andiel; dramatic advisor was Yvonne Gebauer. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in English. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
According to Richard Wigmore, writing in the May 2022 Gramophone (page 101), Guth’s hyper-grim version of Saul is the perfect antidote for Barry Kosky’s riot-of-color treatment of the oratorio at Glyndebourne. Wigmore praises the singers as stage animals “throwing themselves with gusto into their roles” as well as the chorus and orchestra under Moulds. No one survives with honor except Saul’s younger daughter Michal, “bereft at the close but still unambiguously sympathetic.” These old Bible stories are designed to scour your soul, and Guth does so with grit and acid.
Here’s a trailer from C Major:
OR
