My wife, who usually sings in the Pops, has attended most of the HSC Messiah concerts since 1993, and she says that this was the best Messiah she’s ever heard. The soloists were all first rate and the chorus was right on – but mostly it was the dramatic interpretations that made it so special. It was done overall in a very operatic style, and it is perhaps no accident that during performance I started paying a lot more attention to the libretto. It’s really wonderful how the librettist weaves together the Bible quotes, many from the Old Testament (some of them arguably taken out of context, but what the heck!), into a coherent and subtle story. It doesn’t slavishly follow the bare bones of dogma like the Apostolic Creed, but dwells on sometime unexpected human sides of the story.
But, back to the performance, all of the soloists were absolutely superb singers, very well matched with their lyrical style and voices. Too bad Messiah doesn’t have any quartets – they would have sounded great together. The Saturday crowd applauded arias that were particularly good, as is customary in operas, and all of the soloists got at least one ovation. The chorus, in fact, got an ovation for “He Trusted in God”, which suits our somewhat rowdy character very well – and was fast and dramatic. During “He Trusted in God” the tenor (William Ferguson, who also played Brian in Not the Messiah recently) turned his back to the audience, facing us directly, and as each part entered with “He trusted in God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him if he delight in him”, which of course is delivered very sarcastically – he turned to each part as they sang that line and looked ever more stricken. And then he turned to the audience and sang, “Thy rebuke has broken his heart …” very dramatically. That was typical of the very theatrical approach taken by the alto and the tenor. The tenor also added a little “heh” when he “laughed them to scorn” and the mezzo (Mireille Lebel) frightened the front row with her “shame and spitting”. The bass (Stephen Hegedus) displayed a big range very effectively – bass E and two F’s to baritone F#. But my favorite was the soprano (Sharla Nafziger). Effortless, lovely tone, very even over her entire range, with lots of dynamic range and variation of color but always in control. Beautiful ornamentation that varied from performance to performance. Lovely, lovely B’s. Unassuming, less theatrical than the alto and tenor, but expressive and effective in a somewhat cerebral way. I was entranced. “Rejoice” was very fast and utterly under control, she got an ovation on Saturday for “I Know that My Redeemer” – but my personal favorite was “But Thou Didst Leave His Soul in Hell”, which was done as a solo quartet between the soprano, Eric (violin), Brinton (cello) and Scott (harpsichord). After starting it off the conductor folded his hands and let the go as chamber music, although he could barely control himself, swaying back and forth and trying to give it body English – but it really played well as a collaboration. The ornamentation at the end, first the soprano and then the violin, was particularly fun.
So what did this conductor (Jean-Marie Zeitouni) do with the chorus? Well, a LOT of very detailed stuff that took quite a bit of attention in rehearsal. The most obvious things were a bunch of trills, but perhaps more significant were many unusual and dramatic dynamics, some of which were not particularly natural to do. As a specific example, measure 40 of “His Yoke is Easy” is the end of a phrase that’s about mezzo-forte. There’s a decrescendo on the penultimate beat of the phrase – which seems pretty natural – but then there is a big crescendo on the last note of the phrase, first note of 41, which is decidedly not expected and “feels” unnatural. This crescendo sets up the forte of the next phrase. The effect is subtle but dramatic. A much less subtle dramatic interpretation comes at the end of “All We Like Sheep”, the first part of which is done in a particularly ditzy manner. But the second part, “And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”, has a completely different character, starting pianissimo but including a couple of somewhat unexpected dynamic high points. The ultimate drama, however, comes in the last phrase, which starts pianissimo, swells to about mezzo-forte, then a trill for both women and orchestra starting with a very deliberate triplet from the upper note of the trill and then speeding up – and then the last chord decrescendos. He held the last chord for a long time, so the decrescendo faded gradually to nothing, probably the first time I have actually been part of a true morendo. It’s a shame that the broadcast AGC will undoubtedly erase the effect entirely, but we can remember it fondly.
Anyway, that’s just a sample of the dramatic dynamics. The tempos were interesting, too, and they evolved with the performances. Some of the choruses in the first part slowed down a bit and became more relaxed – but Saturday and Sunday “Let Us Break Their Bonds” was as fast as I’ve ever done it or want to do it. Listening to the other parts doing the melismas it sounded right on, but of course I have no idea how our part did. I was just holding on and trying to head for right beats at the ends of the runs. “He Trusted in God” was pretty fast, too. Oh, and another thing – in the big fugues he consistently put some sort of character, usually involving separated notes, that made the entrances stand out from the texture. For example, in the “Amen” the descending fifth both notes were staccato, and in “And With His Stripes” the first three notes staccato and heavily accented. We’ve had other conductors do this kind of thing, but never with quite the uninhibited, dramatic abandon of this one. Usually they rein it back a bit and the effect is not so striking. Seemingly, however, no effect is too dramatic or too striking for this guy – who Scott tells me is a period expert.
I’d say “He Trusted in God” and “Amen” were the high points for the chorus, but of course I only hear a small part of what goes out into the audience. That audience, however, responded very strongly to the performance. On Saturday they were bursting into spontaneous ovations, on Sunday the final ovation was one of those “leap to the feet and cheer as soon as the last note fades away” things.
All in all, a very worthwhile and enjoyable experience. A tough sing, hard on the voice, mind and spirit – but worth every minute.
Here are some comments from other people about this performance of Messiah:
From one of Joe Villarreal co-workers:
We really, really enjoyed the presentation . . . Please do let the chorus know. I think it was the most moving I’ve seen. My mother has been going to see the Messiah for almost 70 years and she was thrilled.
Carolee Weber, chorus member currently on work assignment in Nigeria, visiting for the holidays:
I was at the Saturday evening performance of the Messiah. I loved the ending of "All We Like Sheep." I thought the basses were particularly good on the melismas this year -- I didn't hear any individual voices. The tenors also had a great sound. Really, the men this year were one of the best groups I remember hearing in the Messiah. I also thought the chorus was great on "He Trusted in God," and I was moved by the tenor soloist's response to that chorus with "Thy Rebuke," and Behold and See." I was annoyed by the audience which continued to applaud after arias, but I guess the performers can be complimented by it rather than peeved at the audience for not knowing when and when not to clap.
Judy Hill, chorus member:
Sitting this bitterly cold morning with a good cup of coffee by the fire, I am enjoying what I call the "Messiah afterglow"; that very satisfying feeling that comes from the high of performances well done, a good night's sleep afterward and the pleasure of remembering the moments that were the most special from these particular performances.
Each year when "Messiah time" rolls around, someone I know always expresses disbelief that I can be enthusiastic about performing the piece, yet again. The inevitable question always comes up: "don't you get bored?" The answer, for me is always a resounding "no". ( In fact, I have said that if I ever find myself bored, I'll know it is time to stop singing the piece.) Maestro Jane Glover said it best in 2006 when her comment about "Messiah" was that "It's always fresh as paint". So true. Every year it is different in so may ways and some years are better than others. This year was certainly no exception.
I must say that our first encounter with Maestro Zeitouni at piano rehearsal felt a lot to me like a first date that wasn't going too well. We circled around each other in the dance that we do each year in working out each conductor's particular interpretation of the piece. I wasn't particularly comfortable with all of the added trills and his insistence on certain dynamic shifts. However, as rehearsal moved into performance, the creative genius of what he wanted became wonderfully revealed, such as all the shaking `lambs' in "Behold the Lamb Of God" and the "gossiping" in "He Trusted In God". As he came to trust us and we, him, our artistic collaboration did truly become musical art and we danced the dance together in a most inspiring way. What a joy it is when that happens!
This particular year was one of those where everything was absolutely right: a conductor who "knows the tune" as our friend, Matthew Dirst says, four excellent soloists ( folks, you don't meet coloratura sopranos like that every day of the week!) and the Chorus. What a wonderful ensemble you all are to sing with!! We are all so into this piece and the hard work over all the years really shows in the choral blend, the well-articulated melismas, and the energy. We have the very great fortune to have Charles' skillful preparation guiding us each year to shape the ensemble that we have become. I feel that we did work that we can all be extremely proud of this year and I wish all of you the same marvelous feeling today that I have as I take a little time to bask in the afterglow. Happy, happy holidays, dear friends!!
Andrea Creath, chorus member:
Judy,
It's amazing how you used several of the same words and thoughts I had uttered about this weekend's performances. Sunday, I was in tears as the shame of "He Trusted in God" sank in by the end of that piece, and they were really rolling be the end of the Amen Chorus. Truly satisfying.
During the little shin-dig afterward, I told the Maestro that the performance was 'most satisfying', and expressed the same thoughts about how the first piano rehearsal was a bit like a blind date...the first few moments were a little uncomfortable as we got to know each other, but as the night wore on, the trust was building. By the end of the week, I had been 'satisfied' in a bright, fresh way that made me want another date! I do hope he returns to Houston soon. He's a 'Carmina' man, so maybe, just maybe...One wonders what he would do with her? ;-)
This was, frankly, not the most exciting Pops for us. We really didn’t sing very much, mostly because the second part of the concert was dominated by a 26 minute movie with orchestral accompaniment of “The Snowman” – a kid’s story about a snowman that comes to life and leads the kid on various adventures. The orchestra was excellent in this segment, and the synchronization, although a bit variable from night to night, at its best was incredibly precise and at worst was pretty darn good.
We did a pretty nice “Go Tell it on the Mountain”, and an a cappella “Away in the Manger” that was challenging and I think worked pretty well. It ended with a series of jazz chords that were really hard to tune and even harder, if you tried, to figure out as harmony. I finally asked George, who has sung a lot of jazz, and he said that he took the first three chords basically as different inversions of A flat, resolving to G. “Well then,” I asked, “What’s that A natural doing there if it’s supposed to be an A flat chord?” His answer, which I must confess I found slightly less than totally satisfying, was, “Well, you know how these jazz guys like to add lots of notes”. I’m going to send a scan of this page to a friend who is a Professor of Jazz at Berklee School of Music and also a prolific jazz arranger, and we’ll see what she says about those chords. At any rate, they were very hard to tune and they sounded, when they were right, very cool. We did six performances, and although I won’t swear that those chords were exactly right in the first couple, they weren’t totally bad in those and I think that they were pretty good in the later performances.
What more is there to say about this Pops? We did “Twelve Days of Christmas” with kids, and of course Michael is great with the kids and that’s lots of fun. And the orchestra did a really bizarre version of “Jingle Bells” in the style of John Phillip Sousa with Santa conducting – Michael gave him a baton and asked him what he wanted to conduct and Santa said “Stars and Stripes Forever”, and Michael said this was the best they could do under the circumstances. I was a bit disappointed that the orchestra didn’t do their usual big band swing number, except for a small portion of the sing-along, but again I guess that was because of the very lengthy movie segment.
So maybe it wasn’t the greatest Christmas Pops for us, but as usual the audience loved it – and that’s the bottom line. If they’re happy, I’m happy.