Richard Bratby

Handel as Netflix thriller: Royal Opera’s Theodora reviewed

Plus: raw, eye- and ear-popping entertainment courtesy of Vivaldi at the Linbury Theatre

Septimius (Ed Lyon), Valens (Gyula Orendt), Didymus (Jakub Józef Orlinski) and Theodora (Julia Bullock) in Royal Opera's Theodora. Image: © Camilla Greenwell 
issue 12 February 2022

The Royal Opera has come over all baroque. In the Linbury Theatre, they’re hosting Irish National Opera’s production of Vivaldi’s 1735 carnival opera Bajazet; unsurprisingly, its first appearance at Covent Garden. Upstairs in the big room, they’re doing Handel’s Theodora: premièred at Covent Garden in March 1750 and then ignored by the Royal Opera and its forebears for the next 272 years.

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