I entirely sympathise with your position, Don B.  I find myself feeling the same in much oratorio of the C18th, and even more so of the C19th.

Have you seen the Sellars staged version of THEODORA (Glyndebourne), which Ollie has strongly recommended in the past?   It raises a very potent connection to your mention of C21st Americans and military intervention.  I thought it was a decent stab at trying to stage the piece, and the new mise-en-scene works tolerably well...  however, it's music of a contemplatory nature, and I didn't feel it worked on stage successfully (because of the absence of dramatic action in the libretto).  Action could have been introduced that wasn't in the libretto of course (producers frequently have recourse to this, to spice things up a bit) but it would have been a falsification of the original work, and Sellars deserves commendation for his restraint here.  The other gripe I have about it is that the piece itself is concerned with the persecution of believers by the heathen... whereas within the conceit of the production, it should have been the faux-Religious Right as the persecutors, rather than the persecuted.

[My own feeling on this is that with 50 genuine operas at our disposal, we ought to stage those - rather than staging non-stage works.  The MATTHEW PASSION staged at Glyndebourne last season was critically panned across the board, I believe.]

My own feeling about the PASSIONS is that they're already in the form most effective for them - the medieval mysterium, a communal retelling of the events of Holy Week whose acuity is sharpened by recognising amongst the performers people who are personally known to the congregation who have gathered.  I think attempts to "dramatise" the Passion story only blunt and distance the narrative, and place it in a Star-Wars-style "far away in a distant galaxy many light-years from us" remoteness.  This works against all the intentions of the composer.  The Chorales represent a kind of interaction and involvement that would be called "Promenade Performance" today.  I would not be opposed to a "semi-staged" presentation in which characters entered and left the chancel at appropriate moments, but for myself I'd limit any staging elements to that level only.

This kind of stuff never appealed to me, but I bought the Jacobs on the strength of the review and have just listened to Spring. I know exactly what you mean, DB. But it's difficult here in the 21st century to understand just how tied to the land and the fluctuations of the seasons most people were in Haydn's time, and that they linked their fortunes with their willingness to work. How much Haydn and his librettist either knew or cared about this is another matter, I suppose... Maybe they imposed their own idealised image of the peasantry.

Delightful music, anyway. Summer tomorrow.

I have just listened to the entire work and am feeling dead happy that I bought the recommended version. It is an absolute joy until the last couple of arias, when the librettist goes all sanctimonious and holy about "never mind that we're miserable and freezing our b**** off here, we will soon be entering the gates of Heaven, where it is eternal spring" or words to that effect.    But each of the Seasons has been a delight, and I will go back to them, possibly incorporating each one onto a themed compilation or such like.