Jephtha – review

Making a Handel oratorio that was conceived for concert performances work as an opera (essentially a theatrical experience) is no easy exercise. When Welsh National Opera's staging was premiered in 2003, it realised an intensity that was wholly compelling. However this second revival fared less well; the tension in the relationships between central characters was not always dynamic enough to sustain the emotional pitch through the evening.

Director Katie Mitchell has transposed the Old Testament story of Jephtha to late 1940s Europe, and has set the action in a much-bombarded hotel that retains a faded glory. Against a background of the strategising of war, a personal and moral dilemma unfolds. Jephtha, leader of the Israelites, strikes a bargain with God: in return for victory against the Ammonites, he promises to sacrifice the first person to greet him after the battle. Triumph becomes torment when he must execute his beloved daughter, Iphis. She is spared death, thanks to the benign intervention of an angel (contrary to the biblical version), but is consigned to live out her days in a nunnery. Fflur Wyn's soprano, now fuller toned than when she sang Iphis six years ago, still has a bright ring, giving her arias a defining edge. It is also her plight that is the most affecting, since losing her love Hamor (countertenor Robin Blaze) is tantamount to losing her life.

As Jephtha, tenor Robert Murray is fluent, his paternal anguish apparent, and Diana Montague as his wife, Storge, is expressive, though neither elicits total sympathy. Key dramatic moments are also somewhat compromised with Alan Ewing's disappointing Zehul; Claire Ormishaw's Angel is similarly lacking, a mechanical rather than charismatic presence. Nevertheless, both chorus and orchestra reaffirm their credentials as exponents of the baroque repertoire, responding warmly to Paul Godwin's incisive conducting.