Handel: Saul ****
Glyndebourne on Tour, 27th October 2015
I admit to having been one of the doubters. When the 2015 Glyndebourne Festival programme was announced, my eyebrows drifted heavenward at the inclusion of Handel’s Saul. Why stage an oratorio when there are around forty of his operas to choose from? However, I reckoned without the inspired Australian director Barrie Kosky, who turns Handel’s 1739 Old Testament oratorio into a gripping psychodrama about King Saul’s descent into madness following the triumph of giant-slaying David. A mere two months after the Festival closed, Saul is triumphantly revived for Glyndebourne’s Tour.
© Richard Hubert Smith
Read the full review on Bachtrack.