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Opera

Startling and sublime - even the candles got a round of applause: Glyndebourne’s Saul reviewed

But for really stylish Handel playing head to Iford Manor for their 80s-inspired Agrippina

1 August 2015

9:00 AM

1 August 2015

9:00 AM

Saul

Glyndebourne, in rep until 29 August

Agrippina

Iford Arts, until 5 August

Caius Gabriel Cibber’s statues of ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Raving Madness’, their eyes staring blindly into the void, petrified in torment, once posed on top of the gate to Bedlam. In 1739, when Handel’s dramatic oratorio Saul was first performed, you could pay a modest fee to pass beneath them and gawk at the living spectacles within, victims of ‘arbitrary passions’ including pride, lust and envy.

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