SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Handel, Messiah: Christian Knapp, conductor, Celena Shafer, soprano, Charlotte Hellekant, mezzo-soprano, David Ossenfort, tenor, Harold Wilson, bass, Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 13.12. 2007

and

Handel,  Messiah: Elizabeth Stoyanovich, conductor, Jessica Robins Milanese, soprano, Kathryn Weld, mezzo-soprano, Stephen Wall, tenor, Barry Johnson, baritone, Bremerton Symphony Concert Chorale, Bremerton Symphony Orchestra, Bremerton Performing Arts Center, Bremerton, WA, 15.12. 2007 (BJ)


Two talented conductors, eight mostly excellent soloists, and spirited work from the respective choirs and orchestras added up to an illuminating pair of Messiah performances, which I experienced within the space of three days. But of the two, contrary to all reasonable expectation, the small-town efforts offered by the Bremerton Symphony under Elizabeth Stoyanovich gave me more pleasure than Christian Knapp’s predictably competent big-city presentation with Seattle’s fine orchestra.

The reasons for this were diverse. Neither performance was quite complete; “completeness” and “authenticity” (dreadful word!) are in any case chimerical notions in regard to a work that Handel himself performed in many different shapes over nearly two decades in flexible response to the forces on hand. In this respect, I regretted that Stoyanovich left out a good deal more than Knapp. Her Part III in particular was drastically shortened, jumping straight from “The trumpet shall sound” to “Worthy is the Lamb.” His omissions concerned only parts of the da capo air “He was despised,” which came to an unstylish stop after the reprise of its opening ritornello, and of the dal segno “The trumpet shall sound,” which was shorn also of its beautiful middle section.

But these are details. More important considerations had to do with what I might call the prevailing atmospheres of the two performances. Stoyanovich presided with her usual grace and dignity. Unlike Knapp, who has in no way toned down the distracting bouncing around on the podium that I drew attention to last season and who still perpetrates what Adrian Boult used to call “the Grecian vase effect,” she uses her left hand with the utmost restraint, for expressive purposes rather than merely to mirror what her baton is doing, With this admirably restrained technique, she elicited from her essentially amateur string sections some of the best, most vivid playing I have yet heard from them.

Like Knapp, Stoyanovich used an orchestra of about 30 players, whereas her choir, numbering about 60, was smaller than the Seattle Symphony Chorale’s roughly 100 voices. Both choirs sang splendidly, the Seattle one with especially clear diction. Yet the Bremerton performance felt much more like Handel.

The crucial factor lay in the difference between drama and melodrama. Except for Stoyanovich’s highly unconventional and ultimately unconvincing gallop through the alto air “He was despised,” both conductors set prevailingly reasonable tempos. But while Stoyanovich’s performance was focused unwaveringly on the character of the music, Knapp’s view of the work seemed to me to draw attention instead to itself.

This was especially true at the rare moments where he departed from a dynamic level that for the most part stood at or above a healthy mezzo-forte. The sudden pianissimo he demanded for the closing lines of “All we like sheep,” at the words “And the Lord hath laid on him,” was one such case, and the beginning of the “Amen” chorus was another. Stoyanovich’s response at both of these junctures was altogether more straightforward, without sacrifice of eloquence or inwardness. The sense of artificiality with Knapp was exacerbated by a somewhat Harnoncourtly penchant, in some of the early numbers, for fining away the tone in concluding bars, though happily this mannerism was abandoned later in the performance.

With one important exception, which I shall come to in a moment, the two teams of soloists were fairly equal in quality, though it has to be said that the Bremerton group’s English pronunciation left something to be desired. (My wife, who is arachnophobic, grew alarmed in the middle section of “He was despised,” when it seemed we were being told that “He gave His back to the spiders.”) The bass arias were in good hands on both evenings. In Bremerton, Barry Johnson began a tad uncertainly, but grew in vocal stature as the performance went on, so that by the time we reached “The trumpet shall sound,” his voice was ringing out majestically, and he coped very well with the frequent rapid divisions in his part. It was all the more regrettable, therefore, that he was deprived of this air’s middle section and dal segno. In Seattle, by contrast, Harold Wilson, impressively commanding at the start of the evening, seemed by that late stage of the evening to be close to the end of his vocal resources, so that in this case the curtailment was perhaps merciful. Of the two tenors, Stoyanovich’s Stephen Wall revealed some meltingly lyrical tones, whereas Knapp’s David Ossenfort, conscientiously though he sang, had some trouble in getting his rather larger voice around the florid passages.

The two mezzo-sopranos both possess beautiful voices, but in comparison with Kathryn Weld, Charlotte Hellekant, in Seattle (the best-known singer in either cast), deployed much the more sumptuous and well-supported tone. Indeed, if she could cure a certain physical stiffness that may be inhibiting its full blossoming, hers could well turn into a truly great voice. Jessica Robins Milanese in Bremerton and Celena Shafer in Seattle showed themselves equally accomplished in tone production, vocal agility, and clarity of line, and Robins Milanese’s English was the best among the Bremerton group.

It is in trying to offer a balanced evaluation of Celena Shafer’s performance that I find myself at something of a loss. This is a singer of such obvious talent that I am reluctant to carp. Her voice is lustrous and warm, and her negotiation of rapid figuration was pretty well impeccable. But she must, please, think about how to comport herself on stage. It is not a good sign when the first reaction that comes to mind about a soprano soloist in Messiah is, “My goodness, what a wonderful Merry Widow she could be!” What with her glances at the upper corners of the hall to look for “a multitude of the heavenly host” (the people sitting in the balconies must have felt flattered), and a confidential little nod to the audience at the words “Yet in my flesh shall I see God,” and the constant plastering of a vapid grin across her otherwise comely face at every appropriate and inappropriate moment, her approach had the hallmark of operetta rather than oratorio. Instead of the egregious antics of Kathleen Battle, whom she could well have been seeking to emulate with her irrepressible swayings and gyrations, Shafer would do better to aim at the much more effective outer stillness and inner concentration that I have heard Thomas Hampson prescribe in his well-named master classes.

Vocal embellishments on both evenings were a shade speculative, Stoyanovich’s team staying perhaps closer to baroque convention in such matters. Seattle Symphony associate principal trumpet Richard Pressley and the Bremerton orchestra’s Dean Wagner played their hair-raising obbligatos well. Messiah emerged, as ever, the imperishable masterpiece it is–not quite the equal of Handel’s very greatest oratorios, such as Theodora, Samson, and Solomon, or his finest operas, like Giulio Cesare, Rodelinda, and Tamerlano, but a means of celebrating Christmas or commemorating Easter that transcends the bounds of any one religious community and speaks to all humanity.


Bernard Jacobson