In “Saul,” the magnificent overture to George Frideric Handel’s 1739 oratorio opens on a dim, but not dark, hall. For several minutes, long enough for an exquisite oboe solo and virtuoso passage by ...

Barrie Kosky’s darkly subversive take first landed at Glyndebourne 10 years ago – then, as now, it featured Christopher Purves as the belligerent, mentally unstable King Saul and Iestyn Davies as ...

When Dr Johnson described opera as “an exotic and irrational entertainment”, he was taking aim at works sung in Italian, for English audiences. Handel epitomised everything that Johnson was ...

Just how much fun can you have at an oratorio about a Old Testament tale of jealousy, madness and death? Well, quite a lot as it happens at the return of Barry Kosky's remarkable production of ...