Alive...?

Huw Williams | 15:02, Saturday 13 December 2014 | Turin, Italy

I was given a ticket for the opera recently. It was such a special joy to hear good music sung and played live once again, and especially a glorious performance of an opera I didn't know especially well – Handel's Giulio Cesare. I now understand why many Handel connoisseurs consider this to be one of his finest operas – the marks of a master of his art are all over the score.

In what I understand to be a joint production between the opera houses of Turin and Paris, Laurent Pelly's concept had a flash of inspiration about it, set in a modern-day museum (- and where else for a production for two cities with huge Egyptian artifact collections?) the historical figures of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Ptolemy and others live their epic struggles against a backdrop of modern museum storehouses, curators and porters – none of whom have the faintest awareness of these ghostly presences and the drama they are playing out. It's an engaging juxtaposition as these larger than life figures playing out their colossal drama without a hint of recognition that they are in fact, dead.

As clever an idea as this is, ultimately it cannot sustain itself for the full length of the four hours or so of the evening. I'm not quite sure why a director would want to try and undermine the music so – Handel characterises these roles with so much incredible dignity that it would take a modern-day colossus of a director to fight against him and win. But it doesn't stop plenty of directors trying and yet again here Handel's music wins out, and by the end makes the visual concept look tired and even perhaps a little silly. But full marks for effort and courage.

But one thought has stayed with me since seeing this production, and it is this idea of living without the slightest idea that we are dead. Because interestingly, this is the verdict the Bible gives on our lives without Christ. Whether we are great historical figures or people who will make less of an impression on the history books, we can play out the loves and fights and struggles and victories of our lives (all hugely significant to us of course) without the faintest idea that we are in fact, dead. Without the eternal life of Christ, the most that our greatest achievements can hope to be will be museum pieces. And yet if have received the new birth that Christ offers us, there is a new heaven and a new earth to look forward to, and a life of greater weight and substance than we could ever dream of in these shadowlands.