King Saul, leader of the Israelites, is going mad. He crawls through a blasted landscape to a terrifying old witch for help. The witch, sung by a man, offers him one of her withered breasts to suck on, and the semi-naked king curls up like a baby to nuzzle at her teat.It’s just one of many disturbing, powerful, and utterly enthralling images in Glyndebourne’s new staging of Handel’s ‘Saul’, directed by Barrie Kosky.The 1739 oratorio tells the story of the unstable Saul, who grows increasingly jealous of the young warrior David. The king orders his son Jonathan to kill the dashing young giant-slayer, but Jonathan – in love with David – refuses. Eventually Saul dies in battle, and David is crowned the new king.The designer Katrin Lea Tag takes that hoariest of opera-production clichés – a black box stage – and rings every brilliant change on it imaginable. She fills the space with brightly-lit objects such as a sumptuous banqueting table, or a glowing carpet of candles, which then seem to exist suspended in a strange universe of darkness; the shifting chiaroscuro effects (lighting Joachim Klein) mirror the instability of Saul’s damaged mind.There are unexpectedly playful delights: at one point an organist spins up on a hydraulic lift through the forest of candles, to present a dizzy little organ solo. The exaggerated eighteenth-century costumes and wigs for the chorus add another layer of visual splendour.Kosky brings forensic clarity, intelligence and sympathetic humour to the storytelling, concentrating on the king’s mental disintegration and the dysfunction of his motherless family. He also creates several compelling links with ‘King Lear’, another story of a mad king in a motherless household.A narrator-figure is presented here as a writhing and snarling seventeenth-century fool/jester. Maternal imagery – sometimes touching (when David cradles the suffering Saul in the manner of Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà’), sometimes grotesque (as with the witch) – haunts the production at every level.The cast could hardly be bettered. Christopher Purves (Saul) creates a portrait of epic grandeur and physical fearlessness; one moment authoritative, the next rolling, crawling, and gibbering, and all while creating a melting bass-baritone sound produced with perfect diction. Countertenor Iestyn Davies is an equally charismatic David, and he delivers the hit number ‘O Lord, whose mercies’ with ravishing beauty.Lucy Crowe and Sophie Bevan as Saul’s daughters Merab and Michal match gorgeousness of sound with superb coloratura skills, and tenor Paul Appleby makes a wonderful Jonathan, whose full-on kiss with David is a highlight. Tenor John Graham-Hall, dressed in white boxer shorts and fake withered breasts to resemble an uncanny female parody of the near-naked Saul, gives a scene-stealing turn as the Witch of Endor.The triumphs of the production keep rolling out. It must have been a nightmare for a director to stage musically complex fugues for a chorus which is rarely static, yet the Glyndebourne ensemble manages to balance amazing precision and ear-caressing beauty of tone with liveliness of movement.They’re helped by a team of six dancers, whose hilarious jiggling, swaggering, disco-style choreography (complete with shouted ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ in time to the music) is another bold risk which pays off again and again during the evening (choreographer Otto Pichler). The funky, extended celebrations of David’s slaying of Goliath which open the work are as fizzy as anything currently in the West End.It’s all underpinned by Ivor Bolton’s dramatic conducting, which brings out both the subtlety and grandness of Handel’s constantly surprising score.Barrie Kosky – an Australian based in Germany - has had something of a floppy operatic career in the UK so far, with a disappointing ‘Castor and Pollux’ for English National Opera. This ‘Saul’ puts him firmly at the very top of the UK tree.‘Saul’ is in repertoire until August 29.
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