LONDON, St John's Smith Square

Monday April 9, 2001

Solomon ranks among the greatest of Handel's oratorios, but anyone who approaches it expecting a major spiritual experience is in for a shock. It's a worldly work, filled with pagan lavishness, and an earthly physicality that avoids any attempt at piety. Ideologically, some of it is dubious and its politics stink. The "divine harmony" of which the characters sing is not the music of the spheres, but the phantasy of a harmoniusly ordered society, watchfully governed by a benevolent monarch.

Solomon makes his famous judgment in a world in which the newly-built Temple in Jerusalem seems more highly regarded as an architectural masterpiece than as a place of worship. "Every object swells with state. All is pious, all is great," Zadok the priest remarks. The Queen of Sheba, meanwhile, makes her famous arrival to gawp at the splendour of Solomon's kingdom as well as to receive his "wise instructions". Handel intended all this to be a reflection of George II's England. No surprise, then, that Victorian Britain took the work very much to heart.

Whatever one's qualms, there's no doubt that the score is miraculous, a profusion of vocal, instrumental and choral luxuriance. It's hard to imagine anyone conducting or playing it better than Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort and Players. McCreesh gets right to the heart of its pomp and circumstance, its opulent pageantry, its sudden swerves into darkness (the judgment scene is very tense) and its moments of eroticism and lyricism. Occasionally, however, the soloists left a little to be desired.

The gruelling title role was taken Michael Chance at short notice, so it wasn't surprising that he took a while to settle. In Solomon's love duet with his wife (Alison Hagley), however, Chance was ravishing, spinning out a fine thread of sound. Hagley returned as the First Harlot in the judgment scene, opposite the great Susan Bickley, spikily vituperative as her rival. Bickley, a great artist, was also a resplendent, awestruck Queen of Sheba. The choral singing, perfectly judged in its mixture of clarity and sumptousness, was outstanding.

Tim Ashley
The Guardian

http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,3604,470493,00.html