George Frideric Handel Theodora
Oratorio in three parts HWV 68
Text by Thomas Morell based on The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymus by Robert Boyle
New production
In English with German and English surtitles
Duration of the performance: approx. 3,5 hours
PREMIERE
- 31 July 2009, 18:30
- 06 August 2009, 18:30
- 09 August 2009, 18:30
- 16 August 2009, 18:30
- 21 August 2009, 18:30
- 28 August 2009, 18:30
Print programme (PDF)
Antioch, around 305 A.D.: Roman governor Valens
orders all citizens to sacrifice to the god Jupiter.
Theodora, a Christian who has renounced the world,
refuses, and therefore is ordered to be taken to the local
brothel, where she is to be raped. The officer Didymus,
who desires her, is able to rescue her, but in the end
they both choose death: their ultimate refuge, the
promise of divine love, inner peace and calm.
Theodora, Handel’s penultimate oratorio, premiered
on March 16, 1750 and dominated by minor keys, was
not to the liking of London’s audiences. Handel and
his librettist Thomas Morell tell the story of two early
Christian martyrs, and thus of the inner conflict of
man, for whom there seem to be only two extreme
paths in his search for love: otherworldly abnegation
or worldly, bodily lust. Between these two extremes,
human life takes place with all its confusing forms of
love. “That
I might rest / For ever blest, / With harmony and love,” Theodora hopes in prison, faced with death.
In this oratorio, love in its absoluteness becomes indistinguishable
from death.
Thomas Jonigk