{"id":2070509,"date":"2025-10-05T16:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2070509"},"modified":"2025-10-05T16:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T16:05:08","slug":"handels-susanna-finds-new-relevance-in-the-metoo-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/handels-susanna-finds-new-relevance-in-the-metoo-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Handel\u2019s Susanna finds new relevance in the MeToo era"},"content":{"rendered":"

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You might not think George Frederick Handel would suddenly find a new relevance in the era of MeToo. Yet his 1749 oratorio Susanna <\/em>fits the bill perfectly. It tells the biblical story of a noblewoman who fights off two would-be rapists only to be accused by them of being a \u201cloose woman\u201d, and sentenced to death. Opera North\u2019s new take on this work is one of occasional eloquence but also frustrating busyness.<\/p>\n

Handel\u2019s operas and oratorios often have an erotic charge, but Susanna <\/em>is nobly chaste from beginning to end. Perhaps that\u2019s why Opera North decided to involve the Leeds-based Phoenix Dance Company, to animate a work that might otherwise seem chilly.<\/p>\n

When Anna and her husband Joacim part in the first act, there are two dancers to mimic their sorrow. When the two \u201cElders\u201d who lust after Susanna sneak up on her as she takes an afternoon bath, two dancers become their doubles in gestures of comic lust. And in the big choral scenes, such as the trial where Susanna pleads her innocence, the stage is packed with swirling movement, all framed in Zahra Mansouri\u2019s minimalist staging which is vaguely suggestive of different floors of a palace.<\/p>\n

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