Philharmonia Baroque conquers "Athalia, Handel's Wicked Queen": a Biblical experience

David Tayler/Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra/Theorbo/Photo: Cindy Warner

David Tayler displays his theorbo after playing "Athalia, Handel's Wicked Queen"

Athalia, Handel’s Wicked Queen, is the third of Handel's oratorios. The action for Athalia comes from the Bible. 2 Kings 11 (largely repeated in 2 Chronicles 23), the story of Athalia, daughter of King Ahab and Jezebel. In the Bible where she reigns 843 to 837 BC, she takes over the throne after the prophet Jehu kills her son and mother, whose body is left to be devoured by dogs.

PBO performs Athalia, Handel’s Wicked Queen two more times, Saturday in Palo Alto and tonight, Friday, at Herbst Theater, San Francisco.

The model came indirectly from Greek drama, according to PBO. The chorus would comment on and sometimes participate in the action.

Athalia orders the remaining children of the Jewish royal house to be put to death, but one child, the boy Joas, is secretly kept safe by his aunt Josabeth. He is brought up in the temple at Jerusalem under the guardianship of the high priest Joad (Jehoiada). When the boy is old enough to assume kingship, Joad shows him to the captains of the Israelite armies and obtains their loyalty. Athalia is overthrown, she and the followers of Baal (including their chief priest Mathan) are slain, and Joas is installed as the rightful king of Judah.

Athalia, Baalite Queen of Judah and Daughter of Jezebel, is sung by Dominique Labelle, soprano.

Mathan, Priest of Baal and formerly a Jewish Priest, is sung by tenor Thomas Cooley at PBO.

Abner, the captain of the Jewish forces, is sung by Roderick Williams, bass-baritone.

Josabeth, wife of Joad, is sung by Marnie Breckenridge, soprano.

Through the land so lovely blooming . . .

This is an aria sung by Diana Higbee in the role of Josabeth.

Choeur et Orchestre de la Xème Académie Baroque Européenne d'Ambronay
Direction Paul Mc Creesh.

The men wore crisp white shirts and black pants and Celine playing a king followed suit. Marnie looked stunning in an off the shoulder red gown and her blond hair up in a French twist, all of which my companion Kent Coddington found attractive.

My Spirits Fail, I Faint, I Die . . . This is a duet sung by Diana Higbee and Vincent Riberi in the role of Josabeth and Joas in Händel's oratorio ATHALIA perfomed for the 24th Ambronay Festival (France) in 2003.

Dominique singing Athalia wore a velvety bias-cut gown in royal purple tones; a ruffled hem revealed her sparkling strappy high heeled sandals. The shoes matched her diamond necklace and earrings. Her straight hair cropped short, amber as in her photos, worn well to set off her bone structure like something Judi Dench wears in As Time Goes By. Michael Colbruno tells me the French Canadian born in my birthplace of Montreal speaks perfect English.

Athalia sings My Vengeance Awakes Me . . .

This is an aria sung by Marta Wlodarczyk in the title role of Händel's oratorio ATHALIA perfomed for the 24th Ambronay Festival (France) in 2003.

Michael Colbruno notes the chorus is capable of stealing the show. You get a chorus of young virgins, a chorus of Israelites, a chorus of priests and Levites, a chorus of attendants; and a chorus of Sidonian Priests.

It’s what it takes to defeat a wicked queen. Athalia with her dying breath curses all:

To darkness eternal
And horrors infernal
Undaunted I’ll hasten away
O tyrants, your treason
Shall in due season
Weep blood for this barbarous day.

On that note I should mention the PBO house manager sang the muse in Berkeley Opera’s Tales of Hoffman recently. Nora's character beseeches the bitter and disillusioned poet to man up and dip his pen in his tears. She’s moving to New York soon so let's watch for this name: Nora Lennox Martin.

To sing us out today, here's Nora as the muse singing Belle Nuit . . .

March 2009 at Berkeley Opera, high definition video by Carter Krizman.

In closing, videographers were there taping an educational series about Philharmonia Baroque with interviews of the musicians, to be shown free in schools to children. Jonathan Luskin at Moosepix said they are shooting through October.

One more note about David Tayler's theorbo from Examiner.com concert writer Stephen Smoliar.

You can sort of see from the photograph that the theorbo has a whole system of strings that are not to be plucked. They are simply there to resonate. The sitar has similar strings, but the theorbo strings resonate with really low bass notes. Those strings give it a characteristically eerie sound, which was used very effectively last year in the San Francisco Opera production of ARIODANTE. [video link] (Too many musicologists spend so much time looking at the notes that the sometimes forget the sounds!)

Readers can find Stephen at http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/

or as a fellow Examiner.com writer at
http://www.examiner.com/x-5030-SF-Concerts-Examiner

Diolch, as we say in Welsh. Thank you.

For more info: www.Philharmonia.org, www.SFOpera.com

Part three of three.

Photo of theorboist David Tayler: Cindy Warner

Athalia, Handel's Wicked Queen, oratorio for English opera fans (part 2 of 3)

Philharmonia Baroque conquers Handel's Wicked Queen with counter tenor Robin Blaze (part one)

Susan Graham to sing at PBO and hosted The Audition documentary

The Audtion broadcast from the Met

Brotherhood and sisterhood, love and peace forevermore

Berkeley Opera celebrates with some jewels (part two of three)