TheatreHD Opera Club in GUM Cinema. Saul. Special screening with Larisa Kirillina

Baroque music — ornate, extravagant, and exuberant — might seem to have little in common with the dark, ancient legend of Saul and David. Yet Claus Guth remains unfazed. The result is a cohesive, powerful, and visually stunning production, with magnificent music and thoroughly convincing stagecraft and acting. 

In the role of the half-mad Saul is the formidable Florian Boesch — an Austrian bass-baritone, singer and vocal teacher, one of the world's leading interpreters of oratorio and German chamber music, and a professor at the Vienna Music University. As David, English countertenor Jake Arditti, who in stature and energy resembles Michelangelo's famous Florentine superhero, sings with a tender, English purity, while crafting a powerful stage presence — a whole, luminous, righteous figure. Conductor Christopher Moulds, whom we know from his work at the Bolshoi, delivers a performance beyond all praise; his virtuosity is aimed squarely at uncovering the music's hidden depths.