Arts & Events

Although I appreciate Handel’s extraordinary gift for composing beautiful music, I often find his works, especially his oratorios but also some of his operas, overlong, tedious and downright boring. Take, for example, Handel’s oratorio Solomon, which the highly regarded Baroque music group The English Concert just performed on Sunday, March 5, at Zellerbach Hall. The performance of Solomon was announced as lasting three hours and ten minutes, including two intermissions, though in fact it lasted far longer than that. When one considers Handel’s use of the da capo format, with its endless repeats, I find that my attention wanes and my impatience mounts. 

Where length is concerned, Handel’s opera Alcina, which The English Concert performed here on November 7, 2021, takes the cake. It lasts four and a-half hours! For Alcina, Cal Performances offered no printed plot summary, and, alas, the supertitles at Zellerbach for that 2021 performance didn’t work, so the audience was left in the dark about what was happening in this extremely convoluted plot. I simply walked out after the first hour and criticised Cal Performances for its failure to provide technical and informational support for this English Concert effort. 

Happily, at this Sunday’s Solomon, the supertitles worked fine. Moreover, perhaps in response to my complaint about the lack of a printed plot synopsis for Alcina, Cal Performances announced that a printed booklet would be presented to audience members at Solomon. However, when I entered the Zellerbach lobby and was given only a thin program, I inquired about the booklet. My attention was drawn to a statement at the top of the program that “delivery of the printed program book for this concert was not possible due to severe weather and road closures in the Pacific Northwest.” At this news, I began to wonder if The English Concert was somehow cursed, at least here at Zellerbach Hall. However, I am happy to report that the printed program offered us, though relatively brief, included an excellent plot synopsis and significant background information on Handel’s Solomon. Cal Performances is here applauded for its efforts this time. 

Artistic Director for this English Concert Solomon was Stephen Fox, standing in for Harry Bicket, the group’s director. Conducting from the harpsichord, Stephen Fox led as vibrant a rendition of this oratorio as one could hope for. Yet its endless repeats and overall length nonetheless palled, at least for this listener. However, there was splendid singing from all the soloists and also from the large chorus, which latter is given extended prominence in this oratorio. Outstanding among the soloists were two women, mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg as Solomon and Miah Persson as Solomon’s Queen. The choice of a female in the role of Solomon is perhaps unexpected and may seem odd; but Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg brought off her portrayal of Solomon quite splendidly. 

Likewise, Swedish soprano Miah Persson almost outshone all the other singers with her lilting vocal portrayal of Solomon’s Queen and her dramatic portrayal as well of one of the two women who dispute which of them is the mother of a baby. In this latter scene, known as The Judgement of Solomon, I found that Handel’s music hardly did justice to this dramatic moment. After each of the two women has plead her case, Handel inserts a lengthy instrumental passage that tends to break the inherent drama, as we wait for Solomon’s decision. Then, when Solomon declares that the baby be split in half with each woman gaining a half of the child, the second woman, sung by soprano Niamb O’Sullivan, voices her acceptance of this decision. Then the first woman’s response, though beautifully sung by Miah Persson, strikes me as too subdued, too lacking in dismay and horror at the prospect of seeing her baby — and it is her baby — cleaved in half by the sword. Only the dissonances in the orchestral accompaniment to her plea to save the child betray the tensions in her response. But all’s well that ends well as Solomon now decides in her favour, restores the baby to her and banishes the second woman from his court. 

Male singers play only bit parts in this oratorio; but American bass-baritone Brandon Cedel was a vocally robust Levite, and tenor James Way offered splendid coloratura as Zadok. Lastly, Cuban-American soprano Elena Villalón was superb as the visiting Queen of Sheba. 

Though the librettist for Solomon is unknown, the story is roughly based on the Old Testament Books of First Kings and Second Chronicles. In the program notes for this performance, Janet E. Bedel maintains, rightly, I think, that Handel is not only praising Solomon for good governance but also his own king and patron, George II. She cites the obvious fact that this Solomon is totally without flaw and is even a paragon of monogamous marriage, whereas the real historical Solomon had hundreds of concubines.  

Solomon’s multiple choruses were expertly sung by the Clarion Choir, whose artistic director is the same Stephen Fox who conducted this Solomon. The choruses in Solomon are indeed among the most varied and complex of all Handel’s choruses. There are double choruses that feature an extraordinary display of antiphonal counterpoint. Also, among many choruses that vigorously praise the resounding splendour of Solomon’s court, there is also a beautifully quiet chorus, known as the “Nightingale Chorus,” simply evoking the quiet whispers of Nature. Accompanying the Clarion Choir, two flutes captured the song of the nightingales. 

Finally, amidst all this hyperbolic praise of Solomon as Israel’s greatest king, I couldn’t help contrasting this with all the recent criticism now being levied on Israel’s latest would-be ’king,’ Bibi Netanyahu. In a desperate effort to return to power and secure his position for the future, Netanyahu has formed an extreme right-wing coalition, including outright Jewish fascists; and he is personally trying to eliminate the autonomy of Israel’s judiciary. Even as prominent an Israeli supporter as journalist Thomas Friedman has repeatedly published recent articles in The New York Times condemning Netanyahu for shattering Israeli society. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently warned that Netanyahu’s attack on the judiciary could soon bring on an extremely disruptive constitutional crisis that would be devastating to Israel’s.democracy. All this, of course, is a far cry from Handel’s panegyric praise, ficitional though it may be, of the Old Testament Solomon as society’s ideal leader. 

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ERRATUM 

It was not Stephen Fox who conducted this SOLOMON, it was The English Concert’s director Harry Bicket. I somehow misread the credits in the program notes, though I correctly identified Stephen Fox as director of the Clarion Choir. I apologise for the error regarding the conductor.