´óÏó´«Ã½

Anniversary years in our multi-media age can result in some funny juxtapositions - explorations and connections one wouldn't have thought of making otherwise. Last week I was in London (a rare event in term time for me!) talking with for a ´óÏó´«Ã½1 documentary on Messiah (to be broadcast on Good Friday, 10 April). We went from the , where Messiah established its special position in British culture in the 1750s, to in the Haymarket. Her Majesty's is more or less on the site of the King's Theatre, where Handel directed so many of his operas in the 1720s-'40s; today, however, it's home to Phantom of the Opera.

Sitting in the stalls, looking up at the gigantic sculptures of lecherous satyrs and voluptuous nymphs framing the stage, I couldn't help feeling it was an ironically fitting correspondence. Eighteenth-century moralists (especially those who attacked the idea of performing oratorio in the opera house) thought all theatres were little better than brothels. One concerned citizen wrote to The Universal Spectator before Messiah's first London performance: 'An Oratorio either is an Act of Religion, or it is not; if it is, I ask if the Playhouse is a fit Temple to perform it in, or a Company of Players fit Ministers of God's Word...?'

One element of the design in Her Majesty's Theatre that was entirely fitting for our eighteenth-century discussions was the giant chandelier hung above the stalls. The theatre of Handel's day would also have been lit in this way - and throughout the performance - thus ensuring that audiences were as much entertained by one another as by the musical offerings on stage. Perhaps the Universal Spectator's correspondent was right to question whether those attending Messiah in the theatre 'will have any Devotion on hearing a religious Performance in a Playhouse'.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?