Joachim Carlos Martini - Handel: Theodora (2012)

27 Aug, 04:33
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Artist: Joachim Carlos Martini & Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra
Title: Handel: Theodora
Year Of Release: 2012
Label: Naxos
Genre: Classical
Quality: FLAC (image + .cue, log, artwork)
Total Time: 02:51:12
Total Size: 705 MB
WebSite: Album Preview

Handel's oratorio Theodora, HWV 68, composed in 1749, was not a great success, even at a time when Handel was a major celebrity in England. Various explanations for its failure have been advanced, including an earthquake that occurred shortly before the production and, in the booklet to this Naxos release, a novel theory concerning cognitive dissonance experienced by London audiences who, being Christians in a city that aspired to be the new Rome, couldn't decide whether to sympathize with the Christians or the Romans in this tragic story of the martyr Theodora and her Roman lover. Handel himself esteemed the work highly, and it's easy to see why: with its dual choruses of Christians and heathens and its tight dramatic structure, it exploits the possibilities of the oratorio form to the hilt. This also demonstrates how composers aren't the best judges of their own works: although the choruses are pure Handelian masterpieces, the arias are no match for those in Messiah or Judas Maccabeus. The work has sometimes been staged to good effect, for it brings out the dramatic impact. There's nothing objectionable in this performance by Germany's Junge Kantorei and Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra under Joachim Carlos Martini, and there is a notable absence of the German accent that German vocal ensembles sometimes feel entitled to retain. The Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra is a competent historical-performance group, and the general deployment of forces, with a small orchestra but a large chorus of young people, is attractive. But Martini's straight-arrow reading and the by-the-numbers performance of soprano Christina Wieland in the title role sometimes leave the listener wishing for more intensity. This is a fully competent recording of this rather rarely heard piece, but it awaits a fuller explication of what Handel was trying to do. -- James Manheim

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