Captivating images – in Luxembourg, 24 Händel operas are being reassembled

Luxembourg sees twenty-four Handel operas brought together as never before The exact location of the soul is unknown to all. Only one thing seems reasonably safe to say: it escapes the body via the mouth, coming up from the chest, like song. It may be as insubstantial as gossamer (as in “Die fromme Helene”), or it may take the form of a naked little child (as in the “Sachsenspiegel”) or of a ray of a light, as in the film “The Green Mile”, in which a miracle-working Michael Clarke Duncan breathes life back into the bodies of the ailing and the dead through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The long notes in Cleopatra’s sarabande aria “Piangerò la sorte mia” from George Frideric Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” require a particularly large supply of air of sopranos. The “O” of the first word is held for such an unbelievably long time that Theresa Dlouhy’s fine, even, and angelic voice never quite manages it. Yet it fits in rather plausibly with this six-minute tragedy in E major: “Piangerò! So long as I have breath, I shall mourn!” cries Cleopatra. When she runs out of breath, Dlouhy suddenly races off, catches one of the dancers running about the stage, grabs him by the nose and chin, pulls his mouth open and liberally stuffs it full of quick, short notes, at least a good half kilo of coloratura, and so deeply that her victim falls to his knees: “When I am dead, my demon will pursue you!” Such is the turn of events in the second part of the aria. With that all the rules of hygiene belonging to the age of the pandemic are cast aside, grandiose prima donna music all of a sudden sounds embittered; for is it not also true that in medieval paintings evil spirits may issue out of the mouths of figures, like rumours? A total of twenty-eight arias, duets, and dances from twenty-four of Handel’s operas and oratorios have been stitched together by the Nico and the Navigators theatre ensemble in the making of this new piece, “Anaesthesia”, which takes us on a gleeful romp between the here and now and that which lies “beyond”, as the master of ceremonies (Adrian Gillott) whispers. He wears a nightcap just as the young Handel did, murmurs alternatively words of wisdom and utter nonsense, both delivered in polished blank verse, he explains the difference between tulips and lips, and flees the sandman’s kiss of death. A countertenor wearing a sheepskin first runs with the herd and then turns into a wolf. As if in a nightmare one individual hangs from the shoulders of the baritone, pulling him further down with each note that is sung. The imagery is ancient yet it presents the music of Handel anew, with no small help from the fantastic music band “Franui”, which has previously given its own beautiful take on Brahms and Schubert. Unfortunately you only have one more chance to catch them: next Sunday in Luxembourg.