Last Updated on December 6, 2024
A Jephtha For Our Time
After recent productions of Alcina and Arminio, the Royal Opera’s series of Handel’s “Covent Garden” operas and oratorios continues with the ROH’s Director of Opera Oliver Mears’ production of Jephtha, Handel’s final oratorio, with a libretto written by regular collaborator Rev. Thomas Morell. Composed in 1751 near the end of the composer’s working life, Handel struggled to complete Jephtha as he was having to manage the onset of blindness. Written into the score by the ailing composer at the end of the chorus “How dark, O Lord, are thy decrees” are the fateful words “Reached here on 13 February 1751, unable to go on owing to weakening of the sight of my left eye.”
The narrative outline of the opera is taken from Chapter 11 of the Old Testament Book of Judges. Jephtha was an exiled Israelite leader (or “judge”) who on the advice of his brother Zebul is brought back from exile by his people to confront the neighbouring Kingdom of the Ammonites. The Ammonites were a pagan tribe who for the last 18 years had been in control of the Israelites. who had started following Ammonite religious practices and gods to an extent that threatened their cultural and religious identity. With the support of his wife Storgé, Jephtha agrees to the job on the proviso that he will become the Israelite leader if he succeeds. After an aborted attempt to forge a peace deal with the Ammonites, Jephtha promises God that if he is successful in battle, he will sacrifice the first living thing that he sees on his return. When this turns out to be his daughter Iphis, Jephtha is distraught and his wife is furious.
His prospective son-in-law Hamor offers himself up as a replacement for Iphis, but Jephtha is resolutely determined to keep his promise to God at whatever cost and the saintly Iphis accepts her fate. As Jephtha is about to strike the fatal blow there is a timely Deus ex Machina intervention from an angel – in Mears’ production a confident and pitch-perfect turn from a boy soprano Ivo Clark – who explains that it’s not God’s policy to encourage human sacrifices (more of an Ammonite practice) and that Iphis can be saved as long as she remains a virgin and dedicates her life to God.
Religious subjects were not allowed to be performed with costumes and scenery during Handel’s time in London so the first performance of Jephtha in 1752 was presented as a 3-act concert at the Covent Garden Theatre. Creating a fully staged production has proved to be problematic. The design of much of the music doesn’t support much in the way of onstage dramatic business and the sensitivities of the ongoing international situation in the Middle East must have been difficult for the production team staging a story that involves Israelites smiting their neighbours.
Oliver Mears circumvents these issues by locating the drama in a post-modern symbolic space. Historical accuracy is ignored and the ending is smartly re-engineered for a modern audience’s sensibility. Costume Designer Ilona Karas has dressed the Israelites as Puritans, the women in grey and white bonnets, waistcoats and petticoats; the men in textured dark suits, coats and long coats. There is not a hint of Jewishness in their portrayal with Jephtha portrayed as a flagellant which is not part of the Jewish religious tradition or the Puritan tradition for that matter.
The Ammonites are in comparison a Hogarthian riot of colour and excess cavorting under a huge chandelier. They are seen but not heard, creating a juxtaposition of piety and hedonism that seems rather more fun.
Mears sees Jephtha as a narcissistic zealot, an Ian Paisley type figure, though the comparison is hindered by the disparity between Paisley’s strangulated, guttural bark and English tenor Allan Clayton’s golden tonsils. Clayton has already established himself as the definitive modern Peter Grimes both in the ROH’s 2022 production (see our review) and then at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. With his Jephtha he must now be regarded as the leading dramatic tenor of his generation and the go-to tortured hero. He takes to the stage looking like Orson Welles as the Sandeman Port Don, with a beard that makes up in business what it lacks in plausibility. Clayton’s acting is very physical and as the realisation of the implications of his vow hits home, he morphs from being upright in his vanity to a shambling husk. From a vocal perspective Clayton is totally at home in the Baroque idiom and his elegiac Act 3 air (English aria) “Waft, her angels”, some of Handel’s most beautifully melodic writing, allowed him to show off the full range of his splendid instrument.
Bass Brindley Sherratt who plays Jephtha’s brother Zebul has the capacity to steal any scene. He does a fine line in malevolent, psychopathic thugs and is one of the finest singers of our time. His resonant tonal authority in the air “Pour forth no more unheeded pray’rs” has a Gordon Brownesque quality. You’re not going to be allowed to disagree with him.
Rich-throated mezzo Alice Coote plays Jephtha’s wife Storgè. Coote has a wonderful dynamic control and is another fine actor, angry with the stupidity of her husband and holding back a post-traumatic sense of hysteria when trying to manage her daughter’s submission to the service of God in the act 3 air “Sweet as sight to the blind”.
Soprano Jennifer France as Jephtha’s daughter Iphis and the rather too handsome counter tenor Cameron Shahbazi as her ardent suitor Hamor are a well-matched couple. There is a delicious sexual tension as their flirting veers close to what used to be called ‘heavy petting’ and their voices are similarly in sync, although Shahbazi was flat in the first half of the show. Jennifer France has a clear and delicate tone and a fine capacity for filigree ornamentation; whilst Shahbazi doesn’t have the tonal resonance of some countertenors, he has a gorgeously flexible tonal palate and a lovely expressivity. France’s acceptance of her impending death in the air “Happy they” in the second act creates a transcendent moment of drama, music and singing. The Act 2 Quartet “Oh, Spare Your Daughter” is another musical highlight with the leads firing on all cylinders.
Set Designer Simon Lima Holdsworth and Lighting Designer Fabiana Piccioli have utilised an architectural use of shadow and light that represents the duality of the Old Testament view of God, a deity who is harsh, but also loving and forgiving. The stage is mostly empty with two huge stone walls expertly and seamlessly steered by the stagehands in a complex choreography to change the spatial dynamics. One moment we are in a metaphysical dungeon, the next in a large enclosed space. The walls have text from Judges 11:33 carved into the stone…”Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel” which must have given the audience pause for thought.
I’m normally a big fan of the Royal Opera Chorus but there was a rhythmic raggedness to the contrapuntal singing that took the edge off some of the big moments. Whether there was an issue with sight lines to the conductor or the onstage video screens I don’t know. Conducted Laurence Cummings delivered a crisp reading of the score with lively tempi and the ROH band responded like a precision machine.
With some arresting imagery, fabulous singing and powerful characterisations Mears has created a Jephtha for our age with its own internal logic and an inexorable tightening of the dramatic tension as the outcome of Jephtha’s vainglorious deal with God plays out. The director plays fast and loose with the story at the end, but I, for one, was grateful that piety didn’t triumph over desire. Handel’s own career as a German who brought the Italian style of opera to London is a testament to the need for an internationalist outlook in the arts and maybe one day we will have a government that can deliver that.
For more information, and to book, visit: https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/jephtha-by-oliver-mears-details
8–24 NOVEMBER 2023
Royal Opera House Bow Street London WC2E 9DD
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