The Glyndebourne season continues with a revival by Donna Stirrup of Barrie Kosky’s 2015 staging of Handel’s Saul, widely regarded as one of the festival’s finest achievements and the production that cemented Kosky’s reputation in the UK as a director of remarkable originality. This is the first time I’ve seen it, having missed both its opening run and the 2018 revival, and it strikes me as an example of Kosky’s work at its finest: probing, insightful, sometimes witty, sometimes dark, always utterly engrossing.
Premiered in 1739, Saul has often been compared to King Lear. There is much of Shakespeare in this portrait by Handel and his librettist, Charles Jennens, of the Old Testament king whose mind slowly disintegrates under the challenges presented to him politically and privately by David after the death of Goliath.
Mindful that the work also examines the moral arguments around dethroning an anointed king – still a huge issue in the wake of the Revolution of 1688 – Kosky updates the oratorio to the time of composition, though his 18th century is a stylised, hedonistic place, reminiscent of Hogarth or Fellini’s Casanova in its gaudy seediness. Garish colours give way to black in the second half when Saul’s behaviour drags his country into war. Kosky underpins the Shakespearean resonances by weaving four small roles together for a single performer (tenor Liam Bonthrone), effectively a jester, who stands in relation to Saul much as the Fool does to Lear.
Jonathan Cohen conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with great subtlety and dramatic weight, admirably capturing the work’s sometimes unsettling urgency. Christopher Purves (Saul) and Iestyn Davies (David) are both returning to the roles they played in 2015. Purves’s snarling delivery has an almost expressionist ferocity, but he is of course a superb actor and his depiction of Saul’s mental breakdown is at times almost distressingly vivid. Davies is his perfect foil, always calm and psychologically centred, suggesting unswerving certainties of faith. His voice remains unearthly in its beauty, and time stands still when he sings Oh Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless.
The rest of the cast are equally strong. Sarah Brady’s Merab is all hauteur and adamantine coloratura, in contrast to Soraya Mafi’s softer voiced Michal. Linard Vrielink makes an outstanding Jonathan, handsomely lyrical, his love for David beautifully realised, while Bonthrone is wonderfully caustic as Kosky’s newly created fool. The chorus, whether sashaying through one of Otto Pichler’s classy dance routines, or negotiating Handel’s complex counterpoint with perfect clarity, are simply sensational.
• At Glyndebourne until 24 July
