Each of Handel’s great oratorios has a specific mood. I always thought it odd that the great Handel scholar Winton Dean characterised Susanna (first performed in 1749) as an English comedy. It’s actually a restrained, intensely moving, very concentrated picture of chastity challenged: there are indeed grotesque elements in the two Elders who make a pitch for the pure Susanna, but there’s nothing funny about her steadfast resistance. Laurence Cummings’s new version with Göttingen festival forces captures fully the uplifting, pastoral, ethereal vision in arias such as Susanna’s “Crystal streams in murmurs flowing”, and his cast, while not all perfect in English, are responsive, with Ciara Hendrick outstanding. Beautiful.
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