Though rather different in character from the only previous recording of Susanna, and on the whole more traditional, this new one – made at a live performance in Wuppertal – has many excellent things, and in particular a good deal of vitality in the choral singing. Nicholas McGegan gives the work complete, even including music that Handel himself never performed; Peter Neumann follows the cuts that Handel made for the initial performances in 1749 and also omits some of the items Handel dropped on its revival, a few weeks before his death 10 years later.
He uses a mixed choir of about 30 voices, who sing with plenty of spirit and lively attack; the fugue ‘Tremble, guilt’ in the chorus ending Act 1 is taken at a rousing pace, is fearlessly sung and full in tone, and the one that concludes Act 2 is done grandly and nobly. ‘The cause is decided’, opening Act 3, is sung boldly and energetically. The choral tone is well defined and the textures are admirably clear in the big fugues.
There is some capable solo singing. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that the two English-speakers excel, although this is not just a matter of words but of idiomatic command. John Elwes as the first Elder sings not only gracefully but manages too to convey something of the character’s self-justifying attitudes to his illicit passion in the second Act 1 air, and even more his hypocrisy in Act 3: this is a subtle and effective piece of characterisation. As the more blustery second Elder, with an inclination to violence rather than coaxing, Tom Sol is very adequate and amply athletic. He differentiates his two roles quite sharply, singing Chelsias’s air with some warmth. Ruth Holton does the Attendant’s two little songs in Act 2 charmingly, with excellent enunciation and cool, idiomatic singing, although Neumann is clearly too quick in the first, ‘Ask if yon damask rose’, marked by Handel non troppo presto but done … well, troppo presto. She is also pushed along quickly in Daniel’s first song, which is thus trivialised, but the clarity and the boyish tone serve well.
The two principals are perhaps a little short of ideal. Sytse Buwalda is a very efficient countertenor, technically capable, well tuned and rhythmic, but rather plummy and hollow in tone, and the words are not always well articulated. But there is some sound and accurate singing and some attractive lyricism. The title-role is even more testing. Elisabeth von Magnus – I have to say, hampered by singing in a language not her own – does not quite rise to the visionary quality of her great songs, in which the chief power of this work resides, despite some rich, steady tone. ‘Bending to the throne of glory’ and ‘If guiltless blood’ are both quite movingly done, but hardly with the intensity and sense of steadfast faith that, for McGegan, Lorraine Hunt brings to this music.
As I have indicated, I find some of Neumann’s tempos strange, but he is broadly convincing and idiomatic. He sometimes draws a rather sustained, seamless texture from the orchestra; it seems to need more air (as Handel famously said of a Greene anthem as he dropped it out of the window). In the German tradition, the recitatives are often rather deliberate. There are, then, many good features here, but on balance I would firmly favour the McGegan which, to my mind, captures the essence of the work more sharply and conveys more of its spiritual force.'