With its powerfully emotive stagings of Bach's St John Passion and Verdi's Requiem English National Opera has built something of a reputation for bringing sacred masterworks to the secular stage. Award-winning director Deborah Warner, conductor and Handel specialist Lawrence Cummings, and ENO's indefatigable chorus master Martin Merry tell Edward Seckerson about the challenges of making a credible stage spectacle of Handel's Messiah, which opens on Friday 27 November.
"It's about us all," says Warner, when asked how inclusive this most popular of all sacred oratorios can be. And she promises to be as good as her word by involving a cross-section of the local community in her vision. "There could be upwards of a hundred people on stage," says Lawrence Cummings, who promises of great public racket for the celebrated "Hallelujah Chorus". So is the fourth wall coming down? Will we the audience be following King George II's example and rising to our feet...?
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The Messiah performances at the London Coliseum 27, 29 November, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11 December. Check out what's on in the ENO season
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