Sonic & dramatic splendour: Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo & a strong cast demonstrate the richness to be found in Handel’s Saul to open the London Handel Festival

Handel: Saul – Christopher Purves, Arcangelo (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Handel: Saul; Christopher Purves, Hugh Cutting, Jessica Cale, Emőke Baráth, Linard Vrielink, Liam Bonthrone, Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen; London Handel Festival at Smith Square Hall
Reviewed 18 Feburary 2025

One of those performances of Saul where we could let our imagination run riot with a cast who brought out the rich drama of the work alongside the very vibrant, present and intent account the music from Arcangelo

The 2026 London Handel Festival opened on Wednesday 18 February 2026 with a performance of one of Handel’s grandest oratorios, Saul. The work was performed by the festival’s principal ensemble in residence, Arcangelo, conducted by Jonathan Cohen, the ensemble’s founder and the Festival’s principal artistic advisor. And the event coincided with the announcement that Arcangelo and Cohen’s relationship with the Festival will continue until ‘at least’ 2029.

The concert took place not at St George’s Hanover Square, a favourite venue with the Festival, but at Smith Square Hall which meant that Cohen and Arcangelo could present Saul in all its sonic and dramatic splendour fielding a choir of 30 singers and orchestra with twenty strings plus of course flutes, recorders, oboes, bassoons, trombones, timpani and continuo. The cast had distinct links to Glyndebourne Opera’s 2025 revival of Barrie Kosky’s 2015 production: Christopher Purves as Saul, Linard Vrielink as Jonathan and Liam Bonthrone as the High Priest were all in the Glyndebourne performances which were conducted by Jonathan Cohen. At Smith Square, they were joined by Hugh Cutting as David, Jessica Cale as Michal, and Emőke Baráth as Merab.

As Ruth Smith points out in her excellent article in the programme book, Handel’s Saul was revolutionary in many ways. Only his fourth English oratorio: the first three were Esther, Deborah and Athalia. Saul was also his first dramatic work with a bass lead, something Handel would return to four years later when he wrote Samson with tenor John Beard (Jonathan in Saul) in the title, lead role.

Saul was the longest English music-theatre work to date and Handel used larger forces than any English music theatre work or Italian opera previously performed in England. In our modern age when bigger can seem to be the norm, it is salutary to remember that the sort of large choral/orchestral forces Handel gathered together for Saul were unusual, that people would have to refer back to the Coronation of 1727, when Handel’s specially written anthems were performed by significantly large forces.

Handel: Saul – Jessica Cale, Emőke Baráth, Linard Vrielink, Christopher Purves, Arcangelo (Photo: Craig Fuller)

Smith also points out that English oratorio was not acted and that much of the drama can be found in the music. Whilst it is tempting to stage works like Saul, the vision of a director can sometimes seem somewhat reductive and allowing the music space; giving our imaginations free rein is more productive. Not that this performance was lacking in physical drama. Linard Vrielink sang his role from memory whilst Christopher Purves rarely needed his score. Purves’ Saul was a character hard to contain and Purves prowled the stage constantly and projected Saul’s mental deterioration even when not singing. 

The other singers reacted and expressed. There was a surprising physicality to Hugh Cutting and Linard Vrielink’s portrayal of David and Jonathan’s relationship. The version of the oratorio performed (which was slightly cut but admirably complete) included David’s solo in the Lament which has a remarkable homo-erotic inference. This was oratorio as drama without the necessity of constantly refreshing the stage picture that a fully staged performance can require.

From the opening notes of the overture it was clear that this was to be a strong performance. Cohen and his players made a sound that was very vibrant, present and intent. Beginning with brisk attack, the music moved to being graceful with the feel of the dance and finally a rather perky end to the overture with brilliant organ playing from Tom Foster (though I found the organ sound a little under nourished). Throughout the evening, Cohen and his players brought out the dance rhythms underlying much of the music.

Looking resplendent in a black kilt, Christopher Purves rightly dominated as Saul. As I have said, it was a performance that was barely contained by the stage, and Purves also pushed the musical outline, moving into sprechstimme on occasion. That said, he has a remarkable command of Handelian musical rhetoric. In his arias he combined strong tone with vivid drama and terrific words, but his voice moved admirably around the music. ‘As great Jehovah lives’ was stirring indeed, though a short whiler late his recitative was sly in its nastiness. In recitative Purves made Saul positively threatening, words coming tumbling out at times, though moments like ‘O perverse, rebellious’ in Act Two verged on the over the top. But at the opening of Act Three, in the Endor scene, Purves made Saul to have a moving degree of self-knowledge.

Purves and Vrielink made the father/son relationship positively toxic, their recitatives together really crackled.

Handel: Saul – Hugh Cutting, Jessica Cale, Arcangelo (Photo: Craig Fuller)

As David, Hugh Cutting was almost the opposite, relying on profound beauty of tone in his arias, yet still imbuing them with meaning along with expressive phrasing. Yes, an aria like ‘O Lord, whose mercies numberless’, with a terrific harp solo from Oliver Wass, was sublimely beautifully yet Cutting brought out the profound meaning too. Cutting brought edge too in moments like ‘Such haughty beauties’ in Act Two, which came out as rather a perky dance, and there was a lovely impulsiveness to ‘You words, O king’. When he did lose his temper fully it was in Act Three’s ‘Impious wretch’ where the libretto’s fascination with the Amalekite’s remains puzzling to those who are not Biblically literate (i.e. the majority of us).

We anticipate a countertenor singing the role of David (though I have seen a female mezzo-soprano in the role too). It was written in the treble clef, but what voice type did Handel expect? Anthony Hicks believed that the role was intended to be sung by the mezzo-soprano Marchesini, but her illness forced a gentleman named Russell to take the role. This has constantly tickled people’s ideas, the fancy that Russell was a countertenor but in all likelihood he was an actor singing at tenor pitch; for revivals Handel always used a female mezzo-soprano in the role.

Emőke Baráth sang Merab’s first arias with plenty of dramatic emphasis and edgy tone, really leaning into the character’s nastiness. Trenchant and almost vicious at times, the fact that Baráth (who is Hungarian) sang her English with an accent almost played into the character. All this meant that when we came to Merab’s change of heart in Act Two with ‘Author of peace’, Baráth’s plangent tone and intensity made the aria rather touching.

By contrast, Jessica Cale’s Michal was all sweetness and light. Thankfully this Michal was not bloodless as Cale sang with style and grace, allied to vibrant tone, whilst ‘See, with what a scornful air’ in Act One had a definiteness and emphasis to it too. ‘No, no, let the guilty tremble’ in Act Two was also firmly decisive. Frankly, Michal and David’s relationship can seem a bit bloodless, but here Cale and Cutting made their first duet lively and engaging, whilst the second which considered Saul’s persecution of David had a fine urgency to it.

Dutch tenor Linard Vrielink sang with excellent command of English and really made the words count. His accompagnato in Act One, ‘O filial piety!’ was compelling and in the following aria Vrielink demonstrated a sense of style too, allied to vibrant tone. In Act Two, he demonstrated some stylish passagework in ‘But sooner Jordan’s stream’. What he and Cutting also managed to suggest was the remarkable intensity of David and Jonathan’s relationship.

The High Priest is one of the prosy, somewhat undramatic roles that can occur in Handel (the High Priest in Solomon is similar), and as a result are prone to cutting. Liam Bonthrone got an admirable amount of his part to sing and did not disappoint. He brought elegant style to the music, yet made the words count. His eyes twinkled and on each appearance Bonthrone really sold the text, making you feel he was letting us, the audience, in on a secret. In his final aria in Act One, Bonthrone and Cohen between them reminded us that French music too could be an influence on Handel.

Matthew Long, from the chorus, made an admirable Witch of Endor, singing with strong clear tone and no funny voices. This directness made the role all the more powerful and fine foil for Neal Davies’ (a fine Saul himself on Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli’s recording) dignified Samuel though in the later part of his accompagnato he became admirably implacable. 

The other smaller roles, sung by members of the choir, were well taken. Malachy Frame made a trenchant Doeg, Achie Inns did what he could with the poor Amalekite whilst Hugo Herman-Wilson was Abner.

This is not a choral oratorio in the way that some of Handel’s later one are, but the choir has a variety of roles to play. They are Israelite commenting on the action but also stand apart in moments like the opening to Act Two, ‘Envy, eldest born of hell’. The choir brought great character and variety to their music, allied to wonderfully rich, all-embracing tone. Some of Cohen’s speeds were surprisingly fast, but his singers followed and there was no drop in character.

The final section of the work sees Handel in his more liturgical mode, creating a large-scale structure out of smaller building blocks. Cohen and his forces made the Dead March into something sober and concentrated, relishing the way Handel uses contrasts in instrumental timbres. The choir then wove a series of concentrated choruses, notable for their sophisticated phrasing, around fine solos from Cutting (admirably direct), Baráth (strong and expressive), and Cale (inward and controlled) before the final chorus with solos from Cutting, ‘O fatal day’, which turned into something both beauteous and moving. The High Priest’s subsequent recitative could seem a letdown but Bonthrone really sold it, before the vividly brisk final chorus.

The orchestra was on superb form. Not only were there stand-out solos from Oliver Wass (harp), Sarah Humphrys (recorder), Georgia Browne and Rosie Bowker (flutes), and Tom Foster (organ), but we could relish the delightful sound of the carillon and the way Handel used his three trombones to give the music an antique air. Cohen and his players worked on giving each moment a particular character, from the various symphonies to the music for the Witch of Endor’s scene. Yet over and above this was that sense of innate drama and Handelian style that the players brought to it.

Handel: Saul – Jonathan Cohen, Arcangelo (Photo: Craig Fuller)

I have seen both Axel Ranisch’s staging of Saul at the Komische Oper Berlin in 2023 [see my review] and Barrie Kosky’s original staging at Glyndebourne in 2015 [see my review]. But when performers bring such vivid drama and strong musical imagination to Handel’s music as Cohen and his forces did here, then you realise that a staging hardly matters at all. This was one of those performances of Saul where we could let our imagination run riot.