Handel’s messiah, a dramatised performance
Saturday 5 march 2022, 7:30pm
saint swithin’s church, Bath
This immersive, dramatised Messiah seeks to re-imagine one of the earliest performances of the oratorio which was given by William Herschel in the Octagon Chapel in 1771. Paragon Singers and their conductor Sarah Latto will be joined by Echo Vocal Ensemble and a Baroque orchestra, and will be directed by Tom Guthrie.
This event is the culmination of a four month long project called Messiah 250. Generous funding from Arts Council England has enabled Sarah Latto and Paragon Singers to bring Handel’s work to a wider Bath audience. A range of events has included free workshops for young people in the city and, in partnership with charity Julian House, for homeless and vulnerable people living in Bath. In addition, and as part of their academic course, a group of students from Bath Spa University have been making a large-scale film documenting this exciting project from rehearsals to the final performance.
The concert programme can be found here.
Read here a review by critic Dorota Kozińska.
Review by Antony Corfe:
Develop an idea, discuss with chosen participants, cost it, marshal the necessary resources, run feasibility studies, run practices ..... this, in a nutshell, produced an unforgettable ‘happening’ on 5th March 2022 In St Swithins’ Church, Bath. A dramatised performance of Handel’s Messiah with Sarah Latto conducting the Paragon Singers, a professional Baroque Orchestra led by Bojan Čičić and soloists from the Echo Vocal Ensemble.
Physical movement can fill in spaces where words are inadequate or emphasise the essence of spoken or sung material. Here, in the Church, the central area became a stage for the enactment of the crucifixion story as conceived by Handel. The twenty or so Paragon Singers, some of whom had never acted before, were led by the Director Thomas Guthrie into filling the stage with movements or tableaux that reflected the mood of arias and choruses.
The result was magical, breath-taking, and imbued with a deep sense of radiant life breaking through the cruelties of a hostile crowd and moving into a mystery of deep and loving triumph. It all made total sense with, for instance and as just one example, the joyful nodding of partners to each other in the chorus “For unto us a Child is Born”. The substance, the essence of the whole extraordinary message, radiated around the audience.
More than the fragments of The Messiah that drift over us from time to time, the entire performance had a mystical and most beautiful focus fashioned into a gradual spiritual awakening. The Hallelujah Chorus started quietly! What a thing to do! Then it built into a glorious crescendo – as did the final Amen chorus.
Sarah was not the usual formal conductor we’re so familiar with. She took different stances in different places. She sang as she conducted, sometimes intent and solemn, and sometimes almost elfin-like as she encouraged the choir to engage in the sheer joy of the message. She seemed to dart sprite-like round the world created on the space in front of us, her face wreathed in smiles.
So, under the passions she displayed, the choir’s response was just glorious with a huge sense of liberation from the encumbrances of held music.
All of this wonder was in full harmony with the original idea conceived and brought to life by Andrew and Gill Clarke resulting from their research into William Herschel’s connection with the Messiah and one of his earliest performances in the Octagon Chapel in 1771.
Antony Corfe