Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2006 > December > 14 > Entry
ASO in Vivaldi and Handel’s ‘Messiah’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Thursday in Symphony Hall. Program repeats Saturday at 8 p.m. www.atlantasymphony.org, 404-733-5000.
Each year, when the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra announces its line-up of holiday concerts, it’s hard not to think of “Groundhog Day,” the movie where every day is an exact repeat of the last — a curse that lasts till you get it right.
Instead of waking up to Sonny and Cher crooning “I Got You, Babe,” here it’s the (almost) frozen repertoire of “Christmas with the ASO” — heard last weekend — and, Thursday in Symphony Hall, Handel’s “Messiah.” (The “ASO Gospel Christmas,” to be performed Friday Dec. 15, is another Xeroxed performance handed-out out annually.)
But then the orchestra and its superlative, 52-voiced Chamber Chorus unfurl its “Messiah,” and we’re thankful for unchanging local traditions.
Norman Mackenzie conducts the Handel evergreen almost exactly the way his mentor, Robert Shaw, did it. The gestures are the same. The tempos are similar. The inflections are fixed. The chamber chorus, drilled by Shaw, warbles and trills and soars from heaven to earth with unwavering stamina, accuracy and beauty of tone. I got you, babe.
Still, even if Mackenzie’s interpretation isn’t baked from scratch, it’s perfectly cooked and (almost) completely satisfying. Even if his ideas aren’t unique, his musicianship is vigorous beyond belief.
He paced the overture’s stately introduction with the utmost care, feeling his way forward, letting each juicy chord resound to its fullest potential, which contrasted nicely with the speedy and bouncy fugue that follows. In the space of about three minutes he created his own little world and invited us in. Mackenzie knows what he’s doing, and I was hooked.
The quartet of vocal soloists held their own, for the most part. Tenor Frank Timmerman and baritone Gerard Sundberg — perennial guests for the ASO’s “Messiah” — sang with solid tone, good diction and a chorister’s sense of imbeddedness. Missing was a soloist’s flair for drama and narration.
The women held more charisma. Mezzo Kelley O’Connor’s voice is of unusual beauty, rich and dark-stained with contralto shadings. She didn’t have the agility for the coloratura aria “But who may abide,” although elsewhere her dusky tone felt just right.
Jessica Rivera’s soprano carried powerfully, if unevenly, through the hall, and about half her words were garbled. (Both woman sang when the ASO performed, and recorded, Osvaldo Golijov’s opera “Ainadamar.”)
So what’s not satisfying about the ASO’s “Messiah”? Well, the list is long. The phony tradition of performing just the Nativity portion of “Messiah” — plus the “Hallelujah” chorus tacked on the end — is shabby, lazy and disrespectful to the composer and the audience, and the ASO should know better.
And with the best choir in America, why doesn’t the ASO start exploring Handel’s other great choral oratorios, beyond the Yuletide season? “Israel in Egypt,” “Solomon,” “Hercules” are masterpieces in which the chamber chorus with Mackenzie (or early-music specialist conductors) could make a significant artistic contribution. Mackenzie, stepping out of Shaw’s shadow, could create a template for how modern-instrument orchestras handle these pieces. Why aren’t they being performed and recorded, ideally for Telarc?
Vivaldi’s “Gloria” filled the program’s first half, all sweetness and light — with less than half the harmonic substance of Handel. Rivera and O’Connor here sounded at times under prepared. Thankfully the choir had its act together — and maybe by this time next year everyone on stage will, too.
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By Ed Robinson
December 15, 2006 1:54 PM | Link to this
I have “cherry” picked just a segment of your article to comment on, but I simply wanted to vent some long held personal feelings about the ASO, it’s mgt. and the city of Atlanta in general relative to the performing arts. Briefly:
“Well, the list is long. The phony tradition of performing”, …..etc.
The ASO and it’s mgt. haven’t been right (with few exceptions) since a bunch of rich old men and women + mgt. ran Yoel Levi off because he wasn’t phony and slick, his only talent was being one of the best at what a musical director does. In this listener’s opinion, the ASO and the city of Atlanta are walking reminders of just how badly the arts and a lot of other things have been “marketed” in this city.
No one apparently realizes that before you “market” something, you must have something worthwhile to market. As orchestras go, the ASO musicians could rank right up there with the best of them. Not any more and not for quite a while in my judgement.
“Marketing” in my judgement will never correct the problem created by showing Yoel Levi to Davy Jones locker because he had the temerity to stand up to a union, choose his musicians w/o interference and program decently without resorting to various and sundry “gimmickry”.
I don’t have much doubt at all, even though I am not privy to Atlanta society such as it is, that if Bernie Markus (and hundreds if not a few thousand others such as myself) had not been alienated by the board’s action when they decided that Levi had to go ….the city would have had it’s new hall probably under construction by now, with quite a few more national/ European tours and hit CD’s under their belt, etc.
No savvy mgt., no director/s of calibre and no decent “hall”. Great city? I think not…..”bush” in fact.
By Peter Stelling
December 18, 2006 4:05 PM | Link to this
Mr. Robinson somewhat naively suggests that the ASO should present some of the other masterpieces of the Handel oratorio output. There’s only one problem: Atlanta concert-goers don’t really appreciate Handel; they only want MESSIAH.
Yeah, at times we are still “bush” league, which is all the more reason to praise the heavens for the wonderful orchestra we DO have and also to be grateful for the dynamic duo of Spano and Runnicles. To characterize these fine conductors or our present orchestra as anything less than world-class is ludicrous.
But, back to Handel. ISRAEL IN EGYPT has been tried here before. No less a showman than Robert Shaw decided in the mid-seventies that we deserved a breather from the traditional holiday MESSIAH. The announcement that ISRAEL would be the substitute offering in that year was greeted by the ASO management and Board of the time with the same consternation as that which follows the announcement in Richard Strauss’ ARIADNE that “the comedy and the tragedy will be performed simultaneously so that the fireworks can commence precisely at 9:00pm.” Apparently 18th century Vienna had its “bush league” moments as well.
Mr. Shaw warmly invited the handful of the faithful who showed up for the first night of ISRAEL to move down and form “community”. “You all look so lonely out there, as scattered as you are,” he continued. Give him credit. He knew his mistake, but the show must go on.
As part of the management team, I was on “hall duty” that night, suffering an abominable head and chest cold. As the ASO Chamber Chorus plowed tunefully through the various plagues that beset Pharoah and his hapless citizenry, “frogs and locusts… blotches and blains,” I snorted and hacked my lungs out (as quietly as humanly possible) feeling great kinship with those beleaguered Egyptians and also those valiant musicians who were putting on a great, Shaw calibre show for a nearly vacant auditorium.
I would love to hear Norman Mackenzie’s ASO Chamber Chorus in ISRAEL IN EGYPT, JEPTHA, HERCULES, JUDAS MACCABEUS, SAMSON … the list is almost endless…and see them all commited to disk, but there is NO local audience willing to attend and help to pay that bill. “Good ideas” are expensive and often break the bank.
Perhaps we should prepare these works for London and Dublin and take our show on the road? Let the Brits and their strong Pound Sterling pay the way for these landmark recordings. It won’t happen here in our lifetime; and there, we would be assured of the favorable reviews we richly deserve.