What’s the difference between oratorio and opera?” is a tricky question. For the most part, oratorios are spiritual, reflective works performed in concert; operas are dramatic, secular and for the stage. But the division does get blurred, and an example comes in Handel’s Theodora which has just had a high-profile, striking but conceptually hijacked staging by the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.
Theodora is an oratorio, which means you might wonder what it’s doing at the Garden. But it has a plot, about an early Christian whose refusal to accept the Roman gods ends in her death. Up to a point, it comes with drama. And indeed it was first performed in this very theatre (or one on the same site) in 1750 – as were many of Handel’s oratorios. They weren’t designed for church performance, and sometimes came with scenery
