Handel’s oratorio Susanna, composed in 1748 and performed the following year, is one of his freshest and most delightful works, described by the scholar Winton Dean as ‘an opera of village life, and a comic opera at that’. The story, popular among Renaissance and Baroque artists, comes from the Book of Daniel and is set among the exiled Jews in Babylon. Susanna (Philippa Hyde) is a virtuous wife whose husband (Timothy Travers-Brown) goes off on a business trip. While he is away, the elders (Tom Raskin and Giles Davies) attempt to seduce her, accusing her of adultery on being rebuffed. She is tried, convicted and condemned, though the boy Daniel (Claire Tomlin) comes to the rescue in the nick of time. He cross-examines them separately and they are exposed and condemned in their turn.

Susanna is rarely performed today, though the story drew some wonderful music from Handel, lyrical in the Act I evocation of married bliss, comic in the portrayal of the elders, and powerful and profound in much of the music given to Susanna and the chorus. A concert not to be missed.

Please note that this concert will last 3 hours (including interval)