Music / operafilm

Saul


Description


Scenisk opførelse af Händels oratorium.

Reviews (9)


MusicWeb international

2022 May

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Paul Corfield Godfrey

2022 May

"The singing of Florian Boesch in the title role has all the ardour and passion that one could desire - no merely polite baroque delivery here - and his English diction and sense of drama are both close to impeccable. As his two daughters, the imperious Merab and the more placable Michal, both Anna Prohaska and Giulia Semenzato ... compensate with sparkling coloratura and some stunning displays of bravura in their upper registers. Jake Arditti makes a very male David where the counter-tenor register really pays dividends, and best of all the principal singers is Rupert Charlesworth whose tenor rings out cleanly and crisply in the best baroque style ... The choral singing of the Arnold Schoenberg Choir is impeccable, thrusting and dramatic where needed ... Even more effective is the well-balanced and well-nourished orchestral playing ... The video production by Tiziano Mancini is expectedly excellent ... The recording as a whole gives a generally well-reasoned and exceptionally musical performance of one of Handel's great oratorios".


BBC music magazine

2016 September

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Paul Riley (musikanmelder)

2016 September

"Pivotal is Christopher Purves's Saul - surely the father-in-law from hell should the Goliath-slaying David choose his daughter Michal (or son Jonathan - tenderly sung by Paul Appleby). Purves has always done rage and menace to the manner born, but his slide into ever-deepening madness is terrifying ... A tour de force to rival the diametrically opposed inscrutable calm that is Iestyn Davies's David ... Taut musical direction from Ivor Bolton consolidates a Glyndebourne bullseye".


Klassisk

2016, nr. 43

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Steen Chr. Steensen

2016, nr. 43

"Det musikalske niveau er sublimt ... medlevende i fraseringer, tempi og klangligt transparent, så det er ren glæde. Alene af den grund, er denne "Saul" et bekendtskab værd, mens det sceniske er splittet: spektakulært, men samtidig uden forbindelse til sit oplæg".


Diapason

2016 decembre

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By

Jean-Philippe Grosperrin

2016 decembre


BBC music magazine

2022 June

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Berta Joncus

2022 June

"Whether lashing out in fortissimo melismas or whispering in pure-tone pianissimo, Boesch probes totalising extremes. Other principals match Boesch's top quality, particularly Arditti, whose climaxes command a lithe, powerful core, but whose central aria, 'Oh Lord, whose mercies numberless', is arrestingly still. Guth's [staging] sometimes works against both the libretto and the music ... Mancini's [video] efforts, by contrast, help restore 'Saul's' dramatic coherence".


Diapason

2022 novembre

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Luca Dupont-Spirio

2022 novembre


The gramophone

2016 August

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Alexandra Coghlan

2016 August

"Joachim Klein's queasy-beautiful lighting ... turns Kosky's visuals into a Caravaggio painting by way of Hieronymus Bosch. Everything in this rotting cornucopia of Baroque excess is exaggerated ... Where the DVD gains is in the access it gives to the detail of Purves's astonishing central performance ... Handel's oratorio has never lived as dramatically as it does here, and a short additional documentary about the production only adds to the many reasons to add this to your collection".


Fono Forum

2016 Oktober

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Manuel Brug

2016 Oktober

"Der Opernfreund kann sich ... erfreuen an Saul vom Glyndebourne-Sommer 2015. Das szenisch aufgeführte Händel-Oratorium ... Kosky wahrt die Balance zwischen Dramatik und Abstraktion ... nie entgleitet Kosky die stringente Psychologie seiner Hauptfiguren. Auf gleicher Höhe: Ivor Bolton mit dem Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Hinreissend und jede Minute Spannend!".


The gramophone

2022 May

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Richard Wigmore

2022 May

"With its unflinching portrayal of the Israelite king's descent into madness and terrible final lucidity, 'Saul' is arguably both the richest and most disturbing of Handel's oratorios ... In Claus Guth's stark, claustrophonic staging ... the Saul family are no less dysfunctional, with violence likewise an ever'present threat ... The cosmopolitan cast, all accomplished stage animals, throw themselves with gusto into their roles ... All act vividly with their faces as well as voices ... I'm glad to have seen and heard this Viennese production: for its engrossing individual performances, and for Guth's dark, often wince-inducing take on a family in decay and the corrupting force of power amid ever-present brutality".