Robert Howell and the Handel Consort & Quire have as their mission the exploration of Handel, and in New Zealand we've had need of them. With their recent single performance of Xerxes they have hit performance and musical gold - with a piece so full of delights, so immediately enjoyable my only sadness is that there was only one performance. Xerxes opens with a fine, typically Handelian overture, we then hear the one aria which everyone knows; 'Ombra mai fu', learnt by every five year old pianist as "Handel's Largo", it turns up at weddings and funerals, is sung soulfully by every recitalist, but not many who hear the wonderful aria realise that it is sung by Xerxes to a plane tree. Xerxes, one quickly realises, is a King with a difference; he's just marched his troops across Asia with the intention of invading Greece and he stops to admire a tree and to relish its shade. So admiring of its beauty is he that he decorates it and places a permanent guard on it. Inevitably Xerxes brings to mind treehugging Prince Charles; it's an opera with its conservationist heart in the right place which the Green Party might happily adopt as its own. Howell's performance was a concert presentation brought to life with a few ingenious props, headgear, entrances and exits - all of which helped to make clear what was happening. It was sung in the original Italian, but the programme booklet contained an excellent programme note by Heather Moodie as well as a complete translation of the libretto which helped further in understanding all the opera's many  extraordinary, farcical, and comic developments. Handel is as aware as Mozart of the complexity and quirkiness of human nature. He relishes the wickedness of some, the foolishness of others, and makes the most of broken promises and the tangles of love. Xerxes, wearing a crown, was sung by Elisha Fa'i, a young singer with a rich toned voice which she uses with fine musicianship. Her sense of line was heard immediately in the well-known aria. Ideally I would like to hear this role sung by a counter-tenor, but the fullness of Fa’i’s sound was well suited to the part. Emma Roxburgh as Romilda is heard first of all off-stage.In this performance she stood to the side and slowly came to the centre. The long held note with which she enters was perfect for Roxburgh's purity of sound - it is a role ideal for her. Gina Sanders gave an outstanding performance as the bitter and scheming Atalanta, who tells in a fiery aria that 'While there are others, Husbands and Lovers, why should I care?' Arsemene, Xerxes brother and often his rival, was played with relish by Beverley Hicks and Penelope Watson was a puzzled, but tenderly sung, Amastre. Chalium Poppy sang two parts, Ariodate who is father of both Romilda and Atalanta, and also Elviro, who was manservant to Arsamene. There was absolutely no danger of confusion between the two; Ariodate is pompous and self-important whereas Elviro is gloriously unhinged, disguising himself as a flower seller and singing (at Handel's instruction) falsetto. Poppy threw himself into the part, entering from the back of the hall with a scarf over his head and a huge bunch of flowers in his hand. I would love to see him in this part on stage! The choir have very little to do in Xerxes. They have a rousing "chorus of soldiers", there is a short" chorus of sailors", and there are some chorus comments in Scene Ten and a short chorus to end the opera, singing about the wonders of love. I can imagine that the choristers wished there was more for them to do, but they made the most of what they had and were rewarded by watching and listening to an excellent cast of soloists. The orchestra was, as always for The Handel Consort and Quire, small, hardworking and very precise. Violinists Rosana Fea and Elizabeth Pritchett, oboists Alison Jepson and Alison Dunlop together sounded marvellously idiomatic; Cellist Martin Griffiths and Harpsichordist Rachael Griffiths-Hughes contributed ever alert continuo support. As conductor Robert Howell keeps a careful ear on all the different strands. He is supportive of the soloists and gives them some interpretive freedom - perhaps if more rehearsal had been possible there could have been more extremes of tempo and more freedom. All who were at Howell's presentation of Xerxes must inevitably be looking forward to the NBR New Zealand Opera staging of the opera which is expected to be part of next year's offerings from them. (Season dates to be announced in September - Ed.). And I must confess that I surprise myself by saying that already I am wondering if NZO will be able to match the excellence of the singing that I have just heard. What worked superbly in Howell's favour was the liveliness and clarity of the sound in the Pitt Street Methodist Church, and the intimacy of the ambience. I am praying fervently that NZO does not put their production into the Aotea Centre. If they do, I'll be asking Prince Charles to write them one of his disapproving letters.

Rod Biss, NZ Opera Magazine, 2010

I confess that until a few weeks ago I had never heard of Heinrich Brockes. I must have read his name in programme notes or in CD booklets, but I had probably read it as one of those names that one reads and then forgets. OK, I’m embarrassed. But now, thanks to Robert Howell I know that he was a wealthy and cultured Hamburg senator who lived from 1680-1747. He was a poet, a librettist and very cognisant with baroque opera. Significantly for what I have just heard he wrote a libretto telling the story of Christ’s passion, Jesus, Tormented and Dying for the Sins of the World which Paul Henry Lang describes as having “true baroque feeling and a sense for the dramatic-theatrical. . . . a work of  great sensuous power presenting the life and sufferings of the Lord in the most touching fashion.”  This libretto became very popular and within a few years a number of composers had set it, most importantly Telemann and Handel. J.S.Bach was aware of it and was sufficiently impressed to lift some of the lyrics for his own use in the St John Passion.

Brocke’s lengthy title is now conveniently dropped and it is always referred to as “Brocke’s Passion”. The Handel Consort and Quire under Robert Howell’s baton gave the first New Zealand performance this Easter of Handel’s setting. It filled a gap in our awareness of Handel as a young composer in 1716 when he was still setting German words, although he may, or may not, have written it in England. (It was the next year that he wrote the Water Music for King George 1^st). It predates Bach’s St John Passion by seven or eight years so Howell’s  performance helped to get Bach’s Passions into historical perspective. There is no doubt that Bach knew Handel’s setting of the Brocke’s Passion as the main source for the Handel work is from a copy Bach made of it at some time. Whether Bach performed it, or if he just copied it out of interest is not known. There is no extant Handel manuscript of the work. 

The two composers, even though they were both devout Christians, had a different approach. Handel is more operatic, more human and his music is more melodic, more sympathetic to the voice and more immediately approachable. Handel’s counterpoint is less gritty, or dissonant than Bach’s, though in this early Handel work it is true that his style is closer to Bach than it subsequently became.

Howell uses small, but excellent forces for his performances. The choir has just one tenor; the hard-working and very dependable Iain Tetley who also stepped out of the chorus to sing the solo part of Petrus with musical and dramatic understanding. And there are three basses, five sopranos and five altos. They sing with an excellent body of sound, filling the helpful and unfussy acoustic of the Pitt Street Methodist Church with ease.

The orchestra too is small. Just one string player to each line, all excellent and stylistically aware, two oboes, two bassoons a double bass and, of course, a harpsichord. The oboes, beautifully played by Alison Dunlop and Alison Jepson are hard-working and are crucial to many of the arias. Peter Watts on the harpsichord provided an idiomatic and supportive continuo line.

Gina Sanders as the Daughter of Zion was excellent throughout. She is given many arias, all of them call for sensitivity of expression. Particularly memorable was her singing of the aria Break, my heart, dissolve in tears which Handel frames with moving string writing. And much later there was her deeply moving aria Hast Thou dressed the deep wounds of my soul which Handel used many years later as Sesto’s aria Cara Speme in Julius Ceasar.

Jayne Tankersley soared away in convincing baroque style as the Faithful Soul. Her arias are all in the second part of the oratorio, but without exception were extremely expressive, conveying all the shock, horror and anger of the words her character sings. John Murray was not entirely at ease with the recitatives of the Evangelist, his line at times floated away in a strange way, but his singing of the aria It seems, as the lacerated back is pressed down was superbly lyrical and movingly tragic.

Mary is a small part with just one very beautiful aria and a duet which she sings with Jesus. Amanda Kirk is a singer of great promise, she has a beautiful voice which she uses with both insight and artistry. O’neal Mendoza (Jesus) was not yet ready for all the demands of the part. He has a voice of promise, at times rich and yet a lack of tonal consistency was probably the result of nerves. Peter Stewart was a gruff and rather blustery Centurion.  

Howell is a devoted Handelian, but as a conductor he is a strict timekeeper – perhaps he feels he has to be, and although this kept the rather long work moving it did limit the expressiveness of it. Particularly with the more experienced soloists he might have given them more freedom of both time and expression and permission to linger on some phrases. Ideally, the performance needed more light and shade, but that does not limit my gratitude for the chance to hear it. 

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Rod Biss, NZ Opera News magazine, 2010

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“For devotion to the cause of Handel no-one has been more single-minded than Robert Howell. He’s read about him, delved into archives, explored the repertoire, and insisted that we broaden our Handelian listening. Undoubtedly he knows what authentic Handel should sound like, he understands the style… Dixit Dominus, written by Handel before he had even reached London and yet already clearly by the master, falls into a series of short movements, solos interspersed by choral movements. Soprano Na Young Kim is a versatile and clear voiced singer at ease in Handel’s florid writing. Mezzo Carolyn Medland, singing her solos from the choir, is also a valuable soloist… Howell had assembled an orchestra for this occasion that had three long valveless trumpets, three horns and some authentic timpani, not quite the large forces that Handel had actually written for, but enough for an indoor performance and in St Michael’s Church together they made a gutsy and glorious noise. It was, however, the choral music that had probably drawn in the good sized audience… After the interval choir and the large orchestra presented the Dettingen Te Deum, a large scale score, Handel at his most impressive, that rounded off the concert well. Bass Michael Diedricks had many important solos and after a hesitant first entry his warm sounding voice had much to offer.”

Rod Biss, NZ Opera News magazine, 14 October 2009

One of the unexpected pleasures of living in New Zealand is that there are still historic first nights to attend. Such as Handel's Semele, composed in 1743, packed with wonderful melodies (like the Handelian hit, 'Where'er you walk') and yet until May of this year, never performed complete here. Robert Howell and the Handel Consort and Quire, which he formed a few years ago, see these strangely neglected works as a challenge which they intend to meet. Howell is an enthusiastic Handelian, the Handel Consort and Quire are a small group based at the Pitt Street Methodist Church in Auckland, he gets together a small professional orchestra - single players on each line - and he books the most experienced soloists available that he can afford. The result is a lively authenticity which sounds particularly effective in the acoustic clarity of the Pitt St Methodist Church. Semele is a hybrid work, an operatic story told in a series of solos and oratorio-style choruses. It's based on a play by Congreve that tells of Semele's love affair with Jupiter which, as you may expect, thoroughly infuriates Juno. Her revenge and the disastrous results of it drive the plot. The end, however, contrives to be happy as Apollo appears and prophesises that a phoenix will rise from Semele's ashes. Semele's ashes? Ah, yes! The cautionary moral of this very immoral tale was to avoid falling in love with the gods if you possibly can, though what can you do when Jupiter has the power to appear in whatever human disguise he chooses? Semele, we learn, was the ultimate victim of heavenly love; incinerated by one of Jupiter's thunderbolts, though let there be no doubt that it was Juno's scheming that caused the disaster. Staging it might present a few challenges, but in a concert presentation when it is all left to the imagination there are no limitations to one's enjoyment other than the length of the piece, the protestant severity of the hall and the hardness of the seats. The amazingly demanding soprano part of Semele was sung by Rachel Alexander who has a big, dramatic voice of great potential which she threw into the runs and frighteningly climbing sequences with vigour. There were times, however, when her voice needed taming; at full volume it had a harshness which was less obvious when she throttled back to a mere mezzo-forte. Beverley Hicks was a brilliant, and appropriately fearsome Juno, she entered wholly into the part and let us hear just how thrilling great Handel singing can be. The usually reliable Iain Tetley, singing Jupiter, was not having a good night; there were. too many missed notes and the break in his voice between registers was all too obvious. The bass, Edward Scorgie, sang several roles well, most memorably as Somnus in a comic scene where he is visited by Juno and Iris. Beverley Hicks sang the contralto roles with sensitivity; she provided a superb foil to Tankersley. The counter-tenor Stephen Diaz is a useful singer of some promise. The whole performance was held well together by Howell, he is rhythmically alert, supportive of the singers and carefully manages questions of balance. As a purist and a seeker after authenticity he believes that we should hear the entire work as Handel wrote it. I applaud that approach yet doubt very much if anyone would have objected if there had been some sympathetic pruning of the score.

Rod Biss, NZ Opera News magazine, June 2008

"Proportions for Saturday night's performance were perfect, with 17 instrumentalists and a choir of 16 heard to their best in the clear acoustics of the Pitt Street Methodist Church. The recurring flourishes of trumpets and timpani were bracingly rugged and, once one's ear was attuned to the slight edge between the two violinists, even this took on a certain charm. Wesseling, with beautifully tailored lines, made the most of her many glorious arias, including the charming: "Hark, hark! Tis the Linnet." Finally, how good it was to have a tenor with the musicality and fine vocal equipment of Iain Tetley. His forthright Joshua managed thrilling top notes that could have brought down the walls of Jericho without any assistance from trumpets and drums."

William Dart, NZ Herald Thursday 18th Oct 2007

"I've been listening to a Cd of Handel's Alexander's Feast in a live recording they made last year which is lively and stylish with the clarity one gets from a small, well trained choir and professional orchestra. This recording makes me want to hear these people in the flesh and there'll be the chance to do that when they perform Joshua later this month."

Rod Biss, Listener Oct 13-19 2007

To read the whole review, CLICK HERE