Tag Archives: handel

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Hallelujah! It’s Time for Handel’s Messiah!

It’s that time of year again…Messiah time, that is. A cherished holiday tradition for many, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is an important part of the season’s festive concert schedule. This year, we’re blessed with a panoply of opportunities to sing (or play!) the Hallelujah chorus. From beloved sing-along performances to the intriguing “Mandolin Messiah”, there’s a concert for you. So dust off your dog-eared copy of Handel’s score and prepare to Hallelujah your way through the holidays!

George Frideric Handel, the man who started it all

Dec. 14 — Geoffrey Boers conducts the Tacoma Symphony and Chorus in a performance at St. Charles Borromeo Church. Local favorites Maria Mannisto, Melissa Scheil, Gregory Carroll, and Benjamin Harris perform the solo vocal roles.

Dec. 14 – 16 — Seattle Symphony and Chorale present four Messiah concerts at Benaroya Hall. Pacific Musicworks artistic director Stephen Stubbs conducts four performances, which feature guest vocalists Shannon Mercer, Laura Pudwell, Ross Hauck, and Kevin Deas.

Dec. 16 — This year’s award for most unusual Messiah concert goes to the Seattle Mandolin Orchestra. Head to Green Lake United Methodist Church for Mandolin Messiah and experience what could be “the first performance of Handel’s Messiah played entirely on plucked strings”.

Dec. 16 —  For those in the Issaquah area, there’s a Messiah performance just for you. The good folks at the Issaquah Press are hosting a Sing & Play Along Messiah at St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church. The free event is part of the Merry Christmas Issaquah fund drive and will benefit Issaquah Community Services.

Dec. 26 — Chase away those post-Christmas blues with University Unitarian Church’s 43rd annual Sing & Play Along Messiah. Don’t miss this chance to play and sing the entire two-hour work (most Messiah performances feature an abridged version). Seattle Pro Musica artistic director Karen P. Thomas conducts.

Dec. 28 — The Northwest Chorale hosts a sing-along Messiah concert at Lake City Presbyterian Church. Proceeds from this performance will benefit Seattle-area food banks.

Dec. 28 – 30 — Ballet Bellevue presents the Pacific Northwest premiere of the opéra-ballet version of Handel’s Messiah, featuring original choreography by Sayoko Knode. Guest conductor Linda Gingrich leads four performances at Meydenbauer Center.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Pacific MusicWorks gives a Triumphal “Il Trionfo del Tempo”

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Daniels Recital Hall (the sanctuary of the old Methodist Church at 5th and Marion) is not yet a convenient or acoustically excellent concert space, but Pacific MusicWorks triumphed over an inadequate stage with an unsuitable shape for an orchestra, plus far too much carpeting throughout, to produce a superb concert version of Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo (The Triumph of Time) Friday night (it’s repeated just once more, tonight, March 31; tickets: $20-$40).

The other triumph is Handel’s. He composed Il Trionfo in Rome in 1707, at the age of 22. It was his first oratorio, and it contains 24 arias, two duets, and two quartets, each one more gorgeous than the last, some coruscating with florid runs and ornaments, others slower and exquisite, and running the gamut of expression. As Roger Downey put it in his excellent notes, Handel “slips in jigs, lullabies, and calls to battle, seductions, laments, glees and prayers, each with a distinctive instrumental accompaniment….”

These are what liven up the stilted libretto written by Handel’s patron, Cardinal Pamphili, essentially a discussion between Beauty, Pleasure, Truth (or Wise Counsel), and Time, on which lasts longest. Beauty is the protagonist the others seek to convince prior to Pamphili’s foregone and puritanical conclusion. In other hands it could have been dull. In Handel’s it’s a rainbow array of sparkling beauty.

Daniels is hardly the venue deserved by performers of the caliber of Pacific MusicWorks instrumentalists and singers, but it’s a pleasure to hear them in such intimate quarters.

Soprano Amanda Forsythe as Beauty, soprano/mezzo-soprano Dominique Labelle as Pleasure, and countertenor Lawrence Zazzo as Truth have all been in demand worldwide, not just for Baroque performance, while tenor Ross Hauck as Time has chosen to base his career here, but had no problem living up to the quality of the other three.

While this was a concert performance, both women embodied their characters, in appearance and demeanor. While Labelle was the mature, sophisticated, worldly woman, dressed in chic designer black flounces over pantaloons with a voluminous gold stole and hefty crystal necklace; Forsythe, vivacious, seductive, fun-loving and young, took the breath away in a simple gold-threaded black dress over one shoulder only, her dark hair caught up at the top of her head and falling in a long ringlet over the bare shoulder and held with a slim gold band. The two guys in rumpled black suits, black shirts, and no ties, couldn’t compete in looks.

In voice, however, all four were a joy to hear for their timbral qualities and technical artistry. Not only could they sing Handel’s exciting, demanding arias with dazzling aplomb and embroider the even more demanding repeats, their expressiveness embodied the words: Forsythe’s beguiling, pouting, conflicted, and finally accepting self; Labelle’s flattery and wiles, tenderness, outrage, and sense of abandonment at the end; Time’s intensity and unpalatable truths; Truth’s urgency and plain honesty, though some of these are more difficult to portray. The gentle duet between Time and Truth near the end was one of the loveliest and a highlight. Zazzo’s countertenor has a huge range, and Hauck amazed some who had no idea he had such strong low notes, almost down to baritone level

Among the Baroque musicians, violinist Tekla Cunningham, cellist Joanna Blendulf, viola da gambist Margriet Tindemans, harpist Maxine Eilander, organist Joseph Adam, and oboists Kathryn Montoya and Owen Watkins all had prominent roles, led from the harpsichord and lute by Stephen Stubbs, who is also music director of Pacific MusicWorks and the prime mover behind the effort to bring top class Baroque opera performance to Seattle. However, thanks to the awkward stage shape, the oboists at first had some difficulty being heard and being together with the soloists.

It’s worth taking notice of Pacific MusicWorks announcements and making sure to get to its performances, including those now being hosted by Cornish College of the Arts. Each time it performs, the result is something rare, in the music itself, in performers, in style.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

A Disappointing Dido from Early Music Guild & Theatre of Early Music

On Saturday night, the Early Music Guild presented Canada’s Theatre of Early Music in a widely-anticipated, well-attended performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.. This was the second half of the program at Town Hall, the first being four solo arias by Handel, and three choral arias by Tallis and Purcell, all accompanied by a small orchestra of six strings and harpsichord.

From the start, this program did not live up to the hype. Perhaps TEM was having an off night, but several choices in the program seemed to be less felicitous than they might have been.

The four Handel arias, all gorgeous individually, came across as tame; at least one livelier piece would have brightened this section. “Total Eclipse” from Samson, sung by tenor Benjamin Butterfield, was an odd choice to begin with. It sounded uninspired and the orchestra sounded a bit ragged. Soprano Agnes Zsigovics and mezzo Meg Bragle could have sung out more in their arias from Theodora. The best of the four was “O Lovely Peace” from Judas Maccabeus with soprano Grace Davidson and contertenor, conductor, and leader of TEM Daniel Taylor.

As contrast, the choruses, Tallis’s “O Nata Lux,” and Purcell’s “Remember Not, O Lord,” and his marvelous chromatic “Hear My Prayer,” with its tonal clashes, had far more energy and showed what this group can do.

The 50-minute Dido and Aeneas was composed for a girl’s school: hence a preponderance of women’s roles. The music is straightforward but none the less beautiful for that. The performance, billed as semi-staged, hardly deserved that nomenclature. All the singers except Dido wore black; long gowns or pants and shirts, while Dido’s dress was shot silk, shimmering peacock colors. They stood or sat across the back in two rows and soloists walked slowly forward for their arias.

No props and minimal acting were included, the one exception being the Sailor, sung by Butterfield with a good lower-class accent and characterization. Taylor took the role of Sorceress and did the music justice with his superb countertenor voice, though neither he nor his two witches with their pretty voices expressed anything malicious or vengeful either vocally or dramatically.

Davidson as Dido’s friend Belinda came into her own with fine singing, a pleasure to hear, but Naomi Kiss as Dido sang with a disappointing frilly and uncontrolled vibrato which obscured the pitch, while her wooden acting hardly expressed passion, fury, or grief. The chorus was the bright spot, singing with vigor and expression. Tempi were good, words audible. (It was never explained why one short segment of the opera, the hunt kill and the storm–a great musical moment for orchestra and chorus–was inexplicably omitted.)

All in all, this could as easily have been a concert program achieved here with local musical forces, just as well sung, and with considerably more dramatic effect.