The Northern Aldborough Festival has announced its most ambitious project in its history - to stage Handel’s dramatic tale of faith, love and persecution, Theodora.
The composer’s penultimate oratorio tells the tragic tale of noblewoman, Theodora, and Didymus - the Roman soldier who sacrificed his life in support of her.
Theodora has a political and religious stance that still resonates today, where being ‘cancelled’, ‘trolled’, imprisoned or even killed for your beliefs is still a possibility.
Under the tyranny of Roman emperor Diocletian, Theodora - a Christian - refuses to take part in a pagan ritual in his honour and is thrown into prison, where she is sentenced to serve as a temple prostitute, a fate she considers worse than death.
Didymus pledges to save her. He switches clothes with Theodora and takes her place in the prison cell. Their plan is discovered, and the two virtuous Christians are sentenced to death. They enter blissful immortality together.
The Northern Aldborough Festival’s innovative semi-staged production offers a rare opportunity for rural audiences in Yorkshire to experience an international world-class line-up of soloists, chorus and orchestra, under the baton of Baroque specialist, Julian Perkins.
The 40-strong production will be hosted in St Andrew’s Church in the rural village in North Yorkshire, which began as a Romano-British town; Aldborough is renowned for its Roman remains and sizeable Roman mosaics.
