Handel Theodora opera to libretto by Thomas Morell. Directed 2022 by Katie Mitchell at the Royal Opera. Stars Julia Bullock (Theodora), Jakub Józef Orliński (Didymus), Ed Lyon (Septimius), Gyula Orendt (Valens), Joyce DiDonato (Irene), and Thando Mjandana (Marcus). Harry Bicket conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera and the Royal Opera Chorus (Chorus Master William Spaulding). Actors/dancers are Holly Weston and Kelly Vee. Other actors are Aquira Bailey-Browne, Ben Clifford, Sarah Northgraves, and David Rawlins. Set design by Chloe Lamford; costume design by Sussie Juhlin-Wallén; lighting design by James Farncombe; movement direction by Sarita Piotrowski. Directed for TV by Peter Jones. Sung in English. Released 2011, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C
Theodora is usually considered an oratorio or a dramatic oratorio. But if you bring in Katie Mitchell, it’s going to be an opera. Mitchell’s modern-times overlay was controversial, but most critics who saw this live were ecstatic about the cast and the music. Handel wrote an Organ Concerto in G Minor for performance with Theodora. The organ piece was usually performed by Handel as a bonus extra, perhaps at an intermission. The Royal Opera here cuts the Organ Concerto.
Katie Mitchell likes to divide her stage into little boxes that get shifted around. Much of the action takes place in more or less modern times in the kitchen of the Roman embassy in Antioch seen in the image below. To the left is a small hall:
On the other side of the hall is a meeting room as seen in the next screenshot below. To your right of the kitchen, there is a refrigerated storage room where a victim could be frozen the death. To your left of the meeting room is another hall that links to two rooms in a brothel.
This video was shot by Peter Jones. There are a lot of people in the world name Peter Jones. In fact, there are a lot of photographers and videographers named Peter Jones. This is Peter’s first credit on this website, and I can’t find out anything else about him. I don’t think Jones ever tried to let us see the full extent of what the live audience could see of the Royal Opera stage. He does let us see the main rooms well enough. Then he zooms in on whatever small portion of the stage is of keen interest. His video doesn’t look like most of the opera videos we have in Blu-ray, which tend to give generous shots of the whole opera stage. His work looks much like the made-for-TV drama movies my wife watches via Internet streaming services. Given the circumstances, I think Jones’s video file is about a good as anyone could do:
Handel’s villain is Valens (Gyula Orendt), the Roman ambassador to Antioch, seen below in the red sweater. He hasn’t heard about “MeToo”, so there are “comfort women” who live in the brothel for the pleasure of Valens and his bodyguards. Kelly Vee (red hair) and Holly Weston (blond) are actress/pole dancers who perform as comfort women, and they are beyond terrific:
Next below we meet Septimius (Ed Lyon), Chief of Security for Valens. Septimius is loyal to the government, but he is also a thinking man. Here he has been put it charge of insuring that all the citizens worship the Roman gods in public as a loyalty check. Death is the punishment for refusing this decree:
Next below on the left is Didymus (Jakub Józef Orliński) an old army pal of Septimius and one of the bodyguards. Didymus used to believe in the Roman gods. But he has secretly converted to Christianity. He is also in love with the Christian girl Theodora (Julia Bullock), who is chief of the household staff at the Embassy. Below, Didymus gives Theodora a beautiful necklace. Theodora is conflicted because she is deep in preparations to assassinate Valens with an improvised explosive device. How can she kill the Ambassador and still keep her Roman boyfriend? This is the kind of question that my wife loves to encounter with her TV dramas:
Next below is a close-up of Didymus that I include as an example of the beautiful Peter Jones videography:
In the next image below we get the single line in this long opera that sums up what the whole show is about:
Now back to Theodora building her bomb. It’s not big enough to do a lot of damage. But it could kill someone at a desk or in a car. Theodora knows her plot against Valens involves huge risks to herself and all those she loves:
Septimius discovers the plot and disarms the bomb. I don’t think Katie Mitchell knows much about high-tech. These scenes with the bomb look like something a talented high school student might create:
Theodora’s punishment: she will become a comfort girl:
The new girl gets a makeover!
With a dress and wig, Katie turns frumpy Bullock into the Devil’s own favorite concubine. Who else looks like this? Nobody for a long time. But I know who Katie had in mind—Louise Brooks:
Maybe you don’t know about Louise. In the days of silent movies, she was considered one of the most dangerous of women on earth. She was the star in the famous Weimar expressionist movie Pandora’s Box:
Below we see the other comfort girls trying to get Theodora interested in pole dancing. Their gyrations are unforgettable. Wherever Handel is now, he is still laughing at how Kelly and Holly steal this show wholesale from the Royal Opera:
Although not a shot is fired, Katie adds a lot of gunplay. Below Theodora gets the drop on some guards with two automatic pistols in one hand! Never saw that move before!
In a famous scene, Didymus exchanges clothes with Theodora so she can escape:
Several critics reported that Orliński, now disguised as Theodora, does a pole dance in the brothel. False alarm. Below he does a brief pole twirl. It’s nothing. Any able-bodied person age 3 to 90 should be able to manage the Orliński twirl:
Peter Jones had to record his video while the singers were on stage before a live audience. The garish stage makeup becomes a problem in Blu-ray. The wounds and bruises look fake:
And especially cringe-worthy is the scene below where a dancer, trying to be kind, seems to put a sticky plastic tape directly onto what seems to be a still-seeping wound of split skin:
Valens will execute Didymus for helping Theodora escape. Theodora will redeem Didymus by surrendering to Valens:
That’s enough to give you a good idea about Mitchell’s update. Handel set Theodora in Imperial Rome during the time when Rome was persecuting early Christians for rejecting the old religion of Greece and Rome. Handel’s incessant development of the themes of virtuous living, obedience to faith, and value of self-sacrifice make sense in that era. But it’s much harder make these ideas “work” when the piece is set in modern times.
Generally, I applaud opera directors who update and/or create overlays for the jewels of opera history. This keeps opera relevant. Mitchell had a huge success with her overlay of Handel’s Alcina, which I graded A+. But for the awkwardness of this Theodora set in modern times, I I’ll have to give a reduction in the grade.
And there is another problem with this title that’s not Katie’s fault: atrocious disc authorship by Opus Arte. Let’s start with the keepcase art and work our way deeper. Daniel Spraggon with Popcorn Design gets credit for the worst keepcase art I have seen in years (maybe ever). No doubt inspired by the bordello, the basic background color is red. But then much of the printed information of interest is also printed in red. Result? You can’t read about half of the credits printed on the keepcase art or in the booklet. In addition, the type fonts selected are so small, one needs a magnifying glass to even determine that you can’t read the information. On the front cover of the keepcase and the booklet, Julia Bullock has a pretty serious head wound. Then someone stuck a small band-aid on it. This is the kind of patch you use with a child after after popping a small boil. Putting this ridiculous image on the cover of this Handel opera amounts to sabotage. The rest of the artwork in the booklet is little better.
Now to the disc. There is no chapter list with incipits. This by itself rules this title out for anyone with a serious interest in Handel’s art. By way of contrast, see the 2011 Theodora title from United made at the Salzburg Festival and staged by Christof Loy. That disc has a complete list of all 69 incipits, each carefully pointed at one of 69 separate chapters. The list is printed in the booklet and on the main disc menu. There is a mysterious label “Chapters” on the Opus Arte menu. But then you have 3 choices. Each choice takes you to the beginning of one of the 3 acts. Grrr.
Adding injury to insult, this show cuts Handel’s magnificent organ. There was just no way to work that into Mitchell’s updated approach.
All of this is alarming as it appears the Royal Opera and Opus Arte may have made a business decision to cut quality on all their titles. Since the beginning of HDVD in the fine arts way back in 2008, the Royal has been the world leader as to content and production quality. Are they fixing now to burn up all their goodwill for short-term profit?
What could we do about this? Well, I recall that England has a new King—Charles III. Since this is the Royal Opera, Charles probably has something to say about this. OK Charles, call a meeting of the Board of Directors. At the meeting, give Alex Beard CBE 4 hours to clean out his desk.
Well, all I can do is to give bad grades. I start with A+. For the difficulties noted with Katie’s overlay, I reduce the grade to B+. For the miserable disc authorship, the grade drops to C+. For cutting the organ concerto, I get to C-. But then the pole dancers get me back to a C. That’s a bad grade for Handel at the Royal Opera.
Here’s a teaser:
And here’s a long video discussing Mitchell’s ideas about this production:
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