The Winnipeg Baroque Festival continues this week with an uncommon offering from the oratorio output of George Frederic Handel.
Students in the University of Manitoba’s Oratorio Seminar class will share Handel’s 1739 masterwork Saul with audiences at the Desautels Concert Hall on Tuesday to mark the end of a semester studying the genre.
Heightened drama a standout
A composer celebrated for both his operatic and oratorio works, Handel blends the two together in Saul in a way that makes the work an exciting challenge for the students performing it.
“It was intended to be a staged oratorio. It’s a dramatic oratorio,” explains tenor Jack Hanson. “So, a lot of the music reflects that where there’s a lot of these instrumental sinfonias and interludes that just isn’t in a lot of the other Handel oratorio works.”
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The drama of Saul will be brought out in engaging ways for the audience, from placing the titular character in a throne in the centre of the stage to using projected images to heighten the setting.
Mezzo-soprano Isabelle Buisson, who sings the role of David in the show, notes that the costumes will also help to convey the story. “Since there’s so many of us, we all get to split the roles,” she explains. “Every role has a different colour that they’re going to wear. You’ll be able to know who everyone is by what everyone’s wearing.”
Juggling meaningful solos and choruses
Because the solos are split between the students to ensure that everyone has a moment in the spotlight, singers are faced with the unique challenge of switching from choruses to solos in quick succession. It’s a challenge that Buisson relishes. “I really enjoy it, actually,” she says, “being able to act as David talking to someone like Michal… I think it’s cool.”
For Hanson, the effort that the students are putting into telling this story of a king slowly descending towards oppressive rule is what will make it resonate with audiences nearly three centuries after it was first shared. “Saul is the driving, motivating factor in everything that happens in the oratorio, pretty much,” he says, “and I think that that kind of transformation from this very noble and good leader into a very tyrannical and frightening force can be something that can be applied to the world… in a lot of places today.”
Handel’s Saul will be performed at 7 p.m. on March 31 at the University of Manitoba’s Desautels Concert Hall as part of the Winnipeg Baroque Festival. Tickets and more information are available at the festival’s website.