Photo taken after Act II, before the intermission. There were only 4 soloists at this point.
Program
Israel in Egypt, Oratorio in Three Parts, HWV 54 (1739) by Handel (1685-1759). Adapted by Jeannette Sorrell.
Artists
Soloists: Amanda Forsythe, soprano; Sonya Headlam, soprano; Cody Bowers, countertenor; Jacob Perry, tenor; Edward Vogel, baritone.
Apollo's Singers (Chorus of Apollo's Fire), Jeannette Sorrell, artistic director.
Sheryl Staples, Lisa Eunsoo Kim, violins; Carter Brey, cello; Robert Botti, oboe; Christopher Martin, trumpet; Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord.
This is an oratorio composed by Handel in the span of about a month. In its original form it lasts about 3 hours. Over the years different people have made various attempts to shorten it. Tonight's version, about 100 minutes in duration, was adapted by Sorrell in 2017. In the Program Notes she mentions her restoring some portions of Part I to make the storyline more complete. To keep the oratorio's duration manageable for modern audiences, she for the most part made cuts within movements and added some dynamics to drive the story. Practices, she claims, that were common for performance of Baroque music in Handel's time.
The three parts of the oratorio are familiar to those with some knowledge of the Bible: Act I: Lamentation of the Israelites for the Death of Joseph; Act II: Exodus; Act III: Moses's Song. Most of Act III is taken from Moses's song as recorded in Exodus 15, which also recorded what Miriam sang.
The death of Joseph as recorded in the last verse of Genesis reads: And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt (NIV). The last line in Act I is "Their bodies are buried in peace," a quote supposedly from Ecclesiastes 44:14. That book has 12 chapters. It turns out in the KJV (up till 1885) the books in the apocrypha was included between the traditional Old and New Testaments. So Handel (more likely his lyricist, believed by many to be Charles Jennens, who also did the lyrics for Messiah) was quoting from the book of Ecclesiasticus. Act II is basically a short description of the plaques that visited on Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, and ending with "the waters overwhelmed their enemies."
There is much to like about the performance. An easy to understand story, music that doesn't overwhelm (unless one chooses to be, by trying to analyze what one hears), performed by competent musicians. The Program Notes describes how vivid Handel made the music: frogs jump off the page; flies appear ... in the violins; hailstones drops ... overwhelming torrent; indeed one can hear these effects, but they are not necessarily more realistic than what Beethoven did in the Pastoral Symphony, to cite an example that comes to mind readily.
Apollo's Fire is based in Cleveland, Ohio. The chorus was founded in 1992 by Sorrell. For tonight there were about 50 singers on stage. Per the listing in Playbill, today's soloists are the leaders of their respective sections (if listing order is any indication). If one looks at the organization's website, there are only 36 singers listed, and none of tonight's soloists is listed as a "core singer." Sounds like a democratic and/or egalitarian organization.
The unfortunate fact is when one thinks Handel and oratorio, Messiah is the one that comes to mind. Enjoyable as it is, Israel in Egypt suffers from a storyline that may be too simple, and the lack of memorable melodies. Indeed none of the movements sounded familiar to either Anne or myself. That in itself may not be that unusual. The last (and only) time the entire oratorio was performed by this orchestra was in 1891 (some single arias were done, evidently). I wonder what Handel would think if he knows this oratorio is performed less than once per century, but Messiah is performed every year.
Acoustics at our seats was generally fine. The solo voices didn't come across as strong as I would like. So there is a difference between Orchestra 3 and Orchestra 1, after all.
We left right after the concert concluded, and managed to catch the 9:38 pm train back to South Amboy with a few minutes to spare.
No comments:
Post a Comment