Freedom
‘Ought we not to leave the free-born mind of man still ever free?’ The question is posed by Didymus, a Roman soldier, in Handel’s oratorio Theodora, with a libretto by Thomas Morell. Handel considered it one of his major works. It has been unjustly forgotten. This week’s Paris production, with a stellar cast, was a welcome resurrection. The drama is set in Antioch, during the reign of Diocletian. All citizens, on pain of death, are ordered to take part in pagan rites. For the Christian Theodora, the matter is clear: there is no room for compromise, though she is nonetheless a loyal subject. Valens, the emperor’s governor, scoffs: ‘They are not Cæsar’s friends, who own not Cæsar’s gods.’ These were the terms of play during centuries of persecution. What happens when Caesar, be he embodied in a social democracy, no longer has gods? What space is left, socially and politically, for those who do? In Theodora, the confession, ‘I am a Christian’, is an ultimatum. It makes one think.
