Handel Susanna - Barbican

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programme note violins in a soulful F sharp minor. Susanna’s father Chelsias does little but mouth moralising platitudes. But his arias are vital: ‘Who fears the Lord’, earnestly contrapuntal, while in his final aria, ‘Raise your voice’, taken up by the chorus, a solo trumpet vies in jubilation with the voice. Early in Act 2 Susanna’s (unnamed) Attendant seeks to assuage her mistress’s longing for the absent Joacim with the song he composed when he was wooing her: ‘Ask if yon damask rose’ is a delectable rustic bourrée with, again, a pronounced English flavour. (This prime example of ‘the light operatic style’ was pilfered by Thomas Arne in his ballad opera Love in a Village.) The Attendant’s second song, ‘Beneath the cypress’, recalling her own lover’s death and presaging the near-tragedy of the following scenes, is a sorrowful D minor siciliano (a vein in which Handel never failed) with an undertow of eroticism. The youth Daniel, a Biblical deus ex machina, has his moment of glory in the aria ‘Chastity, thou cherub bright’, whose spiritual serenity and rich, often contrapuntal, string textures make it a counterpart to Irene’s ‘sunrise’ aria ‘As with rosy steps the morn’ in Theodora. 6 In Susanna Handel seems to have been less concerned than in most of his oratorios to give the chorus a consistent role. In the opening ‘How long, oh Lord’ they give grieving voice to the community of deracinated Jews. Elsewhere – say, in the finales to the first two acts, and the powerful choral prelude and fugue in the courtroom scene, ‘Righteous heav’n’ – they stand outside the action, commenting on its moral implications like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. The finale of Act 3, ‘Bless’d be the day’ – a paean to Susanna’s virtue – is a jaunty bourrée, far closer in style to Handel’s opera finales than to his other oratorios, and doubtless another reason for Lady Shaftesbury’s verdict. Only once, at the opening of Act 3, does the chorus participate directly in the action. ‘The cause is decided’ is a marvellously graphic depiction of the excited crowd in the courtroom, chattering chaotically among themselves before uniting for cries of ‘Susanna is guilty, Susanna must bleed.’ Programme note © Richard Wigmore Surtitles by Kenneth Chalmers
Synopsis The action is set in Babylon during the Jewish exile. Act 1 After a choral lament, the fair Susanna and her husband Joacim, described in the Apocrypha as ‘a great rich man’, sing of their marital happiness. Susanna’s father Chelsias, who has raised his daughter ‘to fear the Lord’, voices the hope that Susanna’s devotion and piety may inspire ‘each wedded wife’. Joacim announces that he must make a business trip. After a change of scene, two Elders (‘the boasted Guardians of our Laws’) appear, both consumed with lust for Susanna. The First Elder has more trouble with his conscience than the Second. Together they plan to conceal themselves, then ‘rush upon the fair, Force her to bliss, and cure our wild despair’. The chorus (‘Righteous heav’n’) threatens divine retribution. Act 2 Following a brief scene for the absent Joacim, Susanna, her spirits fainting ‘beneath the burning heat’, is filled with longing for her absent husband. She bids her Attendant sing synopsis to her. As Susanna bathes in her garden stream, the Elders seize their moment. After she repulses their advances (in the trio ‘Away, ye tempt me both in vain’), they announce that they have caught her in flagrante with ‘the youthful partner of her stol’n embrace’. She is taken off for trial. Joacim, informed of the charge by letter, hurries home. Act 3 In the courtroom Susanna has already been condemned to death after a show-trial. The oleaginous First Elder weeps crocodile tears. Susanna is saved from the scaffold by the youth Daniel, who emerges from the crowd and, like an adolescent Solomon, exposes the Elders’ lies by asking each separately under which tree the alleged act of adultery took place. They give contradictory answers, and are in turn sentenced to death. Joacim returns to ‘the joyful news of chaste Susanna’s truth’. After a love duet the chorus sings in praise of Susanna, ‘the chastest beauty that e’er grac’d the earth’. Synopsis © Richard Wigmore 7
Page 1 and 2: Julien Mignot/Virgin Classics Sunda
Page 4 and 5: programme note George Frideric Hand
Page 8 and 9: Pascal Gély About about the perfor
Page 10 and 11: Anne Dokter about the performers an
Page 12 and 13: about the performers David DQ Lee c
Page 14 and 15: about the performers Les Arts Flori
Page 16: about the performers Les Arts Flori

Handel Susanna - Barbican

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