Theodora, complete oratorio

Handel’s Theodora: Life and Afterlife

George Frederick Handel (1685-1750) was perhaps the most well-known musician across Europe in the mid-18th century. Born in Halle in central Germany, young Handel received only modest composition lessons. This was very much the era of “on-the-job training,” especially for church musicians, and Handel would continue to self-instruct as he gradually came into contact with more diverse styles. After leaving Halle in his 17th year, he spent several years in Hamburg before launching a grand tour with an extended trip into Italy. The capital of vocal and instrumental music, Italy beckoned to Handel as it would one day attract Mozart, Mendelssohn, and many others. These years (1706-1710) were decisive in Handel’s growth as an artist, laying the foundation for his later triumphs on the London opera scene.
Italy brought Handel into direct contact with opera and oratorio (the latter being essentially an unstaged opera), and one of his first successes was the oratorio Il trionfe del Tempo e del Disinganno. The material stayed with him: fifty years later he was still tweaking it for a London revival in English. At his best, Handel could write Italian melody with an ease and charm that native composers failed to surpass. Handel’s Italian period culminated with Agrippina, a powerful opera on classical themes that he presented during the Venetian carnival season of 1710. Even after he crossed north over the Alps a few months later, Handel continued to think and create in the Italian style. He took a post at the court of the Elector of Hanover, Germany, but left for his first (and important) visit to London before the end of the year. Elector Georg soon authorized Handel’s second visit to the English capital, from which the composer never permanently returned.
As fate would have it, Georg became King George I of England in 1714. Handel smoothed the day of reckoning with his former employer by writing the dazzling Water Music. Less than a decade later Handel composed the anthem Zadok the Priest for a new king, George II, crowned on October 4, 1727. Zadok has been sung at every English coronation since. Nevertheless, Handel always considered himself an impresario at heart, a composer for the theater. Whether it be in opera or in the related oratorio genre, his ambitions were to succeed in the theater. The decision about which genre of the two to cultivate—and their similarities far outweigh their differences—came down to one question: money.
Handel’s early successes in London were the result of timing—Italian opera was all the rage when he arrived—and quality of product. He composed, produced, recruited singers, and even managed playhouses (not always effectively) during these decades. But 1738 marked a turning point in Handel’s relation to English audiences, signaling a move away from Italian opera toward English oratorios. Of his 40 Italian operas, only one was composed after 1738 even though he lived another 20 years. A large part of Handel’s shift must be understood in financial terms. Conventional sources for funding such as patronage and subscriptions were running dry, and Handel knew it. Plans for a new opera season were scrapped in mid-1738. Still, Handel’s operatic muse could not be turned off quite so simply. He composed the Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day at this time as a kind of transition, distilling much of his dramatic art into a single “act.” A decade later he brought out Theodora, one of his final large-scale vocal works. It had been almost 50 years since this Saxon first crossed into Italy. Yet somehow the fire endures even here, with writing as virile as any he had yet composed, showing a command of voice and strings as compelling as Agrippina.

Theodora does not fit the mold of Handel’s seventeen other English oratorios. Whereas works like Saul or Jephtha are based on the Christian Bible, the story of Theodora and Didymus derives from non-biblical sources. This is not to suggest that Theodora lacks spirituality or religiosity—far from it, in fact. Handel’s librettist, Reverend Thomas Morell, drew on the writings of Saint Ambrose, a 4th-century French cleric and one of the four original “Doctors of the Church.” Additionally, Morell looked to various acta of the saints for details about these lead characters. He also drew inspiration from a work by the great French tragedian Corneille, whose Théodore appeared in 1646. Corneille’s play and Handel’s oratorio share more than plot: both were failures at the start, as we will discuss later.
Morell’s most important source, however, was a novella by the noted scientist Robert Boyle, a founder of modern chemistry (remembered today for his formula relating gas pressure to volume). In his day Boyle was also a highly regarded theologian. Building upon Boyle’s The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymus (1687), Morell contributed greater interest toward what were previously marginal characters, primarily Irene and Septimius. For example, Irene becomes much more than Theodora’s friend and confidante. In the libretto she emerges as a centering force for the Syrian Christian community of which Theodora and Didymus are members. On multiple occasions, Irene bridges Christian and Roman worlds, intoning blessings over Theodora and prefacing devotional choruses that symbolize the power of faith in the face of persecution (for example, Act 3, Sc. 1: “Lord, to Thee Each Night and Day”). And because the oratorio ends tragically with the deaths of both Theodora and Didymus, it is Irene who must endure, carrying the message of their sacrifice and working to sustain this fledgling Christian community.
On the surface, Septimius, too, should not have featured substantially in this tale. According to historical sources, Septimius was simply a witness to the deaths of a traitorous Roman soldier and his Christian lover. With his subordinate position in the power structure, Septimius could have done little to alter the situation. But in Morell’s adaptation, Septimius embodies the central emotional conflict between individual conscience and social duty. Handel writes several sublime arias for this important character, whose divided loyalties help garner our sympathy. This tension emerges at the outset in Act 1, Sc. 1, where Didymus confronts Valens over a religious decree threatening Christians, and Septimius already finds himself of two minds—caught between his master and his friend. Whereas Didymus seems prepared to openly confess his support for the Christians, Septimius’ sense of obligation to Roman law (“We can only pity whom we dare not spare”) holds him in check. At the signature aria, “Dread the fruits of Christian folly,” he chastises the secret worship of those he would otherwise allow to pass unnoticed. He, too, must deliver the painful message to Theodora that she is condemned to serve the soldiers’ pleasures. But by Act 3 and his aria “From virtue springs each gen’rous deed,” Septimius’ character transformation attains full completion.
Despite its powerful music and well-constructed libretto, and in glaring contrast to Handel’s opinion that it contained his finest work, Theodora failed miserably with the public. After the premiere on March 16, 1750 at London’s Covent Garden, Theodora appeared only two more times. Revived for a few shows several years later, it then languished in obscurity until late 20th-century productions began to restore its reputation. A handful of Handel’s friends and patrons did grasp its true worth, but the general public was unmoved. Their reasons likely have little to do with the music itself. For one thing, a massive earthquake just one week before opening night had scattered a substantial proportion of London’s theater-going crowd. And even at the best of times, public tastes wavered with the wind. Old Testament topics seemed to find better favor; hence the strong reception accorded to Judas Maccabeus (1746) and Joshua (1748) in prior seasons. The tragic ending of Theodora, in which both lead characters are martyred, was a bridge too far for many of Handel’s supporters, who preferred their night’s entertainment to conclude with a rousing chorus rather than a hymn of transfiguration. Akin to the powerful lament from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the final duet between Theodora and Didymus evokes emotions with incredible tenderness and spirituality. But that, apparently, was not what audiences in 1750 wanted most.
In hindsight, looking back some 250 years, we can now appreciate that Theodora is a landmark work. Handel’s own opinion of its worth was justified. Certainly the tone is more subdued than many of his operas and oratorios. Tonight’s new production by Timothy Nelson responds to the work’s interiority, taking the whole as a rite of supreme drama—albeit on a more personal level. Indeed, we are meant to be moved by the plight of Theodora, whose religious convictions ground a strong, noble personality just as fully as they undergird the entire oratorio. Even more than that, Handel and Morell’s attention to supporting roles—primarily Septimius and Irene—ensure that dramatic interest never wavers. The end result is a non-stop emotional narrative, following multiple arcs that lead toward a transcendent conclusion deeply earned. To achieve such a conclusion satisfactorily required some of the greatest music ever written, and perhaps we are better positioned than Handel’s contemporaries to appreciate that feat.

(c) Jason Stell