Surtitles are unusual in dance productions. Morgan Creek, based in Hollywood, said it was still planning to release the film early next year. The company will be hoping to benefit from the current popularity of graphic horror movies.In the US, Freddy vs Jason, is topping the box office charts by taking $36m (£24m) during its first weekend. The film was banned on video in the United States and Britain.The latest instalment in the Exorcist saga, summed up by its tagline “God is not here”, stars the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard as a young Father Merrin. They are planning on hiring a new director to reshoot some scenes.”The original Exorcist film, starring Max von Sydow as the middle-aged Father Merrin, earned instant notoriety on its release in 1973 for its graphic portrayal of a possessed girl whose talents included rotating her head 360 degrees. One source involved with the production told the New York Post: “There were huge fights between Paul, who is more artistic, and the company. Agents for the cerebral director, whose films include Rolling Thunder and The Comfort of Strangers, refused to comment on claims that Morgan Creek had fired him last week and withheld a payment due when the film was finished.

It overran by half an hour; but by that time many of the audience had left.. For horror movie lovers, it is the equivalent of a Bond movie without deadly gadgets – an Exorcist prequel lacking in blood and projectile vomiting. The conductor, Emmanuelle Haim, dished out lukewarm tempos and sometimes muffed the cadences The poor Scottish Chamber Orchestra struggled manfully The opera seemed interminable. Tim Mirfin, in the part of Timagene, is a true bass, but his style was comic.Sarah Fox, in the prima donna role of Cleofide, shaped and coloured the phrases with intuitive eloquence, her tone luxuriously beautiful But nobody was really happy. The other high male role of Gandarte, originally sung by a woman, was given to a countertenor, Robin Tyson, thus betraying Handel’s sound-world twice over. Jane Irwin, in the title role, is a fine mezzo, with copious nobility and gravity, but of course she could not imitate the great male singer who created this part. This Metastasio libretto has a typically soubrettish female, Erissena, and Christine Rice occasionally managed a smirk and a flash of the eyes.

Otherwise, everything progressed with the utmost decorum and without a trace of charm.The castrato problem was not really addressed at all. This had nothing to do with the illness and withdrawal of Ian Bostridge; he was replaced by the excellent Toby Spence in the tenor role of Alexander the Great, and the rest of the cast were equally good.However, if the essence of Handel is wit, irony, physicality and emotional excess, then Poro never really got started. The other soprano, Elizabeth Donovan, was endearing and childlike, and the Northern Sinfonia played with point and taste.Compared to this, Porowas an unhappy experience. Seductiveness, however, was amply supplied – together with excitement, sexiness, humour and a sense of dance; all the things Handel fundamentally needs – by the soprano Catherine Naglestad as Melissa, who shamelessly upstaged everyone. First, you can’t reproduce the sound of the castrato voice nowadays, and Sarah Connolly, in the title part, although sensitive and refined and with a warm low range, sounded spongy in the bravura passages. Second is the tendency to make Handel sound pompous and formal.The other male role, Dardano, was sung by Anna Burford with strength and dignity, but her beautiful sarabande aria seemed unseductive.