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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
February 15, 2015
The words are purposes
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
From Diving into the Wreck, Adrienne Rich
I sometimes find, when I am thinking deeply about something, that a variety of events seem to come together to throw further light onto a troubling question, like Ariadne's thread taking one in and out of the underworld, not to provide any definitive answers, but to broaden the scope and history of the question. In this case, being ill for several days after hearing a deeply satisfying performance of Handel's Theodora I found myself listening to a radio interview with several young women embracing the term "slut", not in any way considering it a reclaiming, rather as something new and bold. Then I came across the poem quoted above which perfectly describes the experience of submerging into a myth to enter the place beyond judgement where one becomes one with all its elements - the damage and the treasures. Lastly, I stumbled onto a you-tube video of Rich reading her own poem; I played it over at least a dozen times, noticing something fresh on each reading, a marvellous reminder that a myth is a kind of archeological dig through human cultural experience. And a reminder also that when the archeologist comes across a stratum containing artefacts or elements from what he had considered two separate periods, he knows he has to revise his story.
The myth of Theodora and Didymus contains one of those elements in the astonishingly brutal punishment with which the virgin Christian Theodora is threatened if she refuses to honour the Roman Jove - transport under guard to to the "vile place where Venus keeps her court" where "the meanest of my guards shall triumph o'er her boasted chastity." Multiple rape in other words. The buried nub of the conflict in this story is the profound shift in the role of the the Virgin Priestess from "She who, belonging not to one man, stands, or loves, in place of the Divine" - (the meaning of prostitute, whore, bitch and slut - once all words with sacred meanings) to "She who renounces the pleasures of the body in order to experience a love for all in a spiritual realm which transcends death". In the period in which the story takes place, Jove, as the King of the gods, representing power and military success stands halfway between the waning reign of Venusian love and sexuality, and the emerging paradigm of Christian love and spirituality. The tensions and paradoxes are beautifully expressed in the characters and words of Handel's contemporary, Thomas Morell and Handel's music illumines the damage and treasures that prevail as only music can.
Matthew Brook as Valens, Caesar's right hand man in Antioch, does a wonderful job of conveying the charming brutality and sneering contempt of the sublimely self confident - he reminded me of a Saddam Hussein! Lawrence Zazzo's counter-tenor was perfectly suited to the role of Didymus, the sensitive Roman soldier, converted and in love with Theodora, while his fellow soldier and friend Septimus , sung by Zachary Wilder, was very effective in communicating the conflicting demands of loyalty to a commander, loyalty to a friend, appreciation of the injustices and infelicities of the situation, along with a perverse pleasure in the misfortunes of others. I would have appreciated seeing all three in military uniforms - that small concession to the art of storytelling could have helped illumine the essential struggle between love and war.
Nathalie Paulin, dressed in a white wedding dress, brought a warmth and vitality to the role of Theodora, such that when she and Didymus sang of hoping to meet again on earth, while confident of meeting in heaven, there was no questioning her conviction, and the physicality of her joy. Krisztina Szabo, in her role as Theodora's friend, Irene, succeeded in the challenging task of moving between the darker and more condemning aspects of Christian faith to the sublimer expressions of joy and hope, particularly in the repeated images of a dawn increasing into endless light.
The Vancouver Cantata Singers were far more than the backdrop to this drama. Alternating between a horn-enriched texture reflecting the dark underpinning of a threatened revenge in the chorus of Heathens, and the pure heartfelt layers of sound dropping like artichoke leaves as if from a heavenly feast (I had a particularly good spot in the auditorium from which the sopranos seemed to be singing directly into my left ear in a miracle of acoustic magic) as the chorus of Christians, they sent their sound exquisitely swirling, evoking glory, peace and rest, lovingly supported by the orchestra.
Ah, the orchestra! The stage was so jam-packed with musicians and singers it is a wonder that there was room to breathe, let alone raise a bow. But the warmth, clarity and precision of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra was like the finest of tapestries keeping the audience enchanted for the whole of the three hour performance. The mellow articulateness of baroque oboes, the haunting delicacy of the flute/strings passage marking the turn towards tragedy, the horns and deeper strings, rich yet never overbearing, the whole as mature and memorable as a very fine cognac.
At the outset the imperturbable director, Alexander Weiman, invited us to "strap ourselves in and prepare for an afternoon of tragedy!" This was so much more than that.
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