Messiah (Musical Work)

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    Trinity Church’s ‘Messiah’ Is Still the Gold Standard

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    The church’s urgent and eloquent version of Handel’s classic oratorio remains an inspired communal rite.The holidays are a time for traditions — and for doubting them. Is Grandma’s ham drier than you thought when you were young? Is the movie the whole family watches every year maybe a little offensive?For me, the question on Wednesday was whether Trinity Wall Street’s version of Handel’s “Messiah” would be as good — as bracing, as riveting, as disturbing and consoling — as I remembered.Seeing Trinity’s “Messiah” for the first time, in 2011, showed me the galvanic possibilities of this classic work more than any recording or live outing I’d ever heard. This wasn’t the usual, quaintly sleepy Christmas routine, but a seething, electrically direct and dramatic enactment of an oratorio that both describes and calls for transformation: “And we shall be changed,” its crucial line promises.It had been a good few years since I’d heard the church’s Handel. But when people would ask me for a “Messiah” recommendation among the many options that pop up in New York each December, I always replied with a single word: Trinity.This “Messiah” long achieved its exhilarating quality because of an exceptional in-house choir and period-instrument orchestra — and because of Julian Wachner, Trinity’s director of music and the arts, who led the church’s medieval-to-modern music program with energy and ambition.Early last year, Wachner was fired by Trinity before the church completed an investigation into an allegation of sexual misconduct against him, but after it found he had “otherwise conducted himself in a manner that is inconsistent with our expectations of anyone who occupies a leadership position.” (He has denied the allegations.)His departure left one of the jewels of the city’s artistic and spiritual scenes leaderless until early this month, when the church announced that Melissa Attebury would be its next director of music. For almost two years, Trinity has depended on staff and guest conductors, including, for this year’s Handel, Ryan James Brandau.And what a relief to find that Trinity’s “Messiah” is still burning and gladdening, vivid in both darkness and light. If Brandau’s account lacked some of Wachner’s charged, even savage intensity, that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. The performance on Wednesday added some elegance to the urgent, heartfelt directness, the emphasis on communication, that has been Trinity’s standard in this piece.The soaringly resonant acoustics of Trinity Church smoothed some of the choir’s bite into airy creaminess, but the passion was still palpable. And while the orchestral sound was sleeker than I recalled, it had the same stirring commitment and bristling responsiveness to the vocalists, as well as a glistening, pastoral dawn quality to the shepherds.These forces are truly an ensemble, aided by my favorite aspect of the church’s version. Most “Messiah” presentations bring in a quartet of opera singers for the solos. Trinity’s soloists — almost 20 of them — come forward from the choir, giving the oratorio the feeling of an intimate, alternately sober and joyous communal rite, modest yet monumental.This practice also allows the ensemble to show off the strengths of its roster — no soprano is ideally suited to all the work’s soprano arias — and to experiment. In 2017, Wachner switched the traditional genders of all the solos, a change thrillingly recalled this year by having Jonathan Woody, a bass-baritone, blaze through “He was despised,” instead of the standard female alto.There was more sense than there usually is of the range of emotion within numbers, not just between them. The tenor Stephen Sands was calm, then pressing in the beginning of the work, and the soprano Madeline Apple Healey was sprightly, then tender in “Rejoice greatly.”Brandau guided the score so that “Hallelujah” seemed to emerge from the preceding numbers, which gradually rose in fieriness. And he, choir and orchestra built patiently to the work’s true climax — “The trumpet shall sound,” sung with annunciatory power by the bass-baritone Edmund Milly and accompanied with eloquence, on a difficult-to-control, valveless natural trumpet, by Caleb Hudson — before the shining waves of the final “Amen.”Though pleasant enough, a pared-down New York Philharmonic’s “Messiah,” heard on Tuesday, paled in comparison. Conducted by Fabio Biondi, the founder of the distinguished period-instrument group Europa Galante, in his debut with the orchestra, this Handel was a little stolid in the first part, though with more crispness and color in the second and third.Fabio Biondi made his debut with the New York Philharmonic conducting Handel’s “Messiah.”Chris LeeThe quartet of young vocal soloists made little impact in tone or interpretive zest; the star here was the venerable Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, from Boston. A few dozen strong, it sounded rich yet lucid, with metronomic clarity in the burbling 16th notes of “And He shall purify” and with evocative gauziness in “His yoke is easy.” Biondi led a lithe, brisk “Hallelujah,” seemingly designed to make this omnipresent number a bit more unassuming than the norm.Beyond the start of “Messiah” season, this was a banner week for early music in New York. On Saturday, the Miller Theater hosted the Tallis Scholars at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Manhattan, part of the ensemble’s 50th-anniversary tour. And yet more Handel: On Sunday, Harry Bicket and the English Concert continued their annual series of concert performances of his operas and oratorios at Carnegie Hall with “Rodelinda.”“Messiah” is Christmas music, but not entirely, since Jesus’ birth occupies only a few minutes of this long meditation on his life and example. The Tallis Scholars, though, offered a real Christmas program of largely Renaissance works focused on the shepherds who receive the news of the Nativity.Under their founder and director, Peter Phillips, these 10 singers displayed the floating silkiness, light without seeming insubstantial, that has been Tallis’s trademark over its remarkable career.With the parts of Clemens’s “Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis” interwoven with other pieces, the concert was notable for its exploration of different composers’ treatments of the same texts. Pedro de Cristo’s straightforwardly lyrical, almost folk-inflected “Quaeramus cum pastoribus” preceded Giovanni Croce’s grander version. And Jacob Obrecht’s plainchant-and-elaboration “Salve regina” came before Peter Philip’s later, more declamatory one.At Carnegie, the English Concert brought its characteristic spirited polish — moderate yet exciting — to “Rodelinda,” a work that Bicket has helped make a sterling recent addition to the Metropolitan Opera’s standard repertory. The cast of six was individually impressive and, even better, well matched. The soprano Lucy Crowe’s voice warmed in the title role as the afternoon went on, and her portrayal was gripping from the start. The countertenor Iestyn Davies, as her believed-to-be-dead husband, Bertarido, had, as usual, special time-stopping persuasiveness in slow music.It was refined work. But the performance over the past week that has lingered with me most is clear. If someone asks for a recommendation — for the holidays, or for music in New York in general — my answer is the same as it’s been for years: Trinity’s “Messiah.” More

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      James Bowman, Who Helped Resurrect the Countertenor, Dies at 81

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      He took up the repertory for the highest male voice at a time when few were performing it. He was particularly known for two roles in Britten operas.James Bowman, a British countertenor who championed repertory for that voice at a time when few singers were attempting it and inspired more composers, including Benjamin Britten, to write for it, died on March 27 at his home in Redhill, south of London. He was 81.Terry Winwood, his civil partner, confirmed the death but said the cause had not yet been determined.When Mr. Bowman started singing professionally in the 1960s, the countertenor — the highest of the male voices, working the same range as female contraltos and mezzo-sopranos — was something of a rarity on opera and concert stages. Alfred Deller, who died in 1979, was the go-to countertenor of the day, but his voice and his acting ability were said to have been limited.“Bowman was a revolutionary talent,” the critic Rupert Christiansen, revisiting one of Mr. Bowman’s 1970s recordings, wrote in The Daily Telegraph of Britain in 2019, adding that “his technique brought a new power to the countertenor repertory.”Mr. Bowman’s breakthrough came in 1967, when he was working as a teacher and was doing most of his singing in choirs. He described the moment to The Santa Fe Reporter in 1987.“A friend came up from London and told me that Benjamin Britten was holding auditions for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’” Mr. Bowman said, referring to Mr. Britten’s 1960 opera, whose Oberon role had originally been written for Mr. Deller. “This is sort of a fairy story — I’d never done anything onstage in my life, but I wrote to Britten and I said, ‘I think I am eminently suited to the role of Oberon.’”He was invited to audition.“I knew that you could barely hear the people who had sung the part before,” he said. “So I went to Covent Garden and I made a big noise and socked them between the eyeballs — and it worked! The next thing I knew I was on tour.”Oberon became one of his signature roles. Mr. Britten wrote other works for him as well, including the part of Apollo in “Death in Venice,” the 1973 Britten opera.“James Bowman’s ringing Apollo sounded authentically unterrestrial,” Martin Cooper wrote in The Daily Telegraph, reviewing the world premiere of the piece at Snape Maltings in Suffolk, England.Mr. Bowman was heard frequently in concert settings as well, and he had a knack for deploying his musical gifts to striking effect in famed performance spaces. Tim Page, writing in The New York Times about a two-hour concert of works by Handel recorded at Westminster Abbey in 1985, called his voice “unusually versatile and pleasing.” Twenty years later, also in The Times, Bernard Holland, after catching him in a “Messiah” at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan, said that Mr. Bowman “sang the countertenor parts with a voice and a dramatic personality able to command attention in a crowd.”His performances and his dozens of recordings encouraged other singers to explore the countertenor repertory, and Mr. Winwood said he was always generous with advice and support for younger singers.“He would think nothing of hiring a studio and arranging a meeting with young singers who he had never even met,” Mr. Winwood said by email, “and I’m pretty sure he would never charge for his time.”In a tribute on the website of the London-based choir Tenebrae, Nigel Short, the choir’s director, recalled the crucial support Mr. Bowman gave him early in his career. He also shared fond memories of Mr. Bowman’s impish sense of humor.“He was such a brilliant, instinctive singer and musician, a huge character and incredibly kind and generous,” Mr. Short wrote, “but my fondest memories will always be of him giggling and snorting loudly at something totally outrageous he’d just whispered in the ears of anyone standing close by.”Mr. Bowman made for a lively newspaper interview as well. He was always eager to dispel stereotypes about countertenors, especially unflattering ones that branded them as effeminate and made them the target of jokes.“We’re a down-to-earth bunch who just happen to like singing in a high register,” he told The Sunday Telegraph of Britain in 1996. “When I look around at my colleagues, I’m struck by how normal most of them are.”When Mr. Bowman performed Handel’s “Messiah” with the St. Thomas Choir at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan in 2005, one critic wrote that he “sang the countertenor parts with a voice and a dramatic personality able to command attention in a crowd.”Jennifer Taylor for The New York TimesJames Thomas Bowman was born on Nov. 6, 1941, in Oxford, England, to Benjamin and Cecilia (Coote) Bowman. He attended the centuries-old school King’s Ely, beginning in 1951; originally a boy chorister there, he soon became head chorister. According to an obituary published by the school, he gave his first concert as a countertenor in 1959 to a small school group in a chapel at Ely Cathedral. The school now hosts an annual James Bowman Lecture promoting the creative and liberal arts.Mr. Bowman attended New College, Oxford, as an organ scholar and was a member of the New College and Christ Church choirs. In 1965 he met David Munrow, who invited him to join his Early Music Consort of London. He continued performing with that group well into the 1970s, and he was also a member of the early music choral group Pro Cantione Antiqua.Mr. Bowman and Mr. Winwood were together for 48 years. He leaves no other immediate survivors.Producing the countertenor voice, Mr. Bowman told The Sunday Telegraph, involved “using the edge of your vocal cords, and neglecting the central part, which is the bass area.”“I can sing bass,” he added. “I use my bass voice to warm up with, before I sing countertenor. But I can’t keep up a bass voice for long — it feels odd.”Although he was a champion of the countertenor and urged composers to write for it, not all of them hit the mark, he told The Independent of Britain in 1990.“People say, ‘I’ve written you an opera,’ and either the range is too wide or they want you to be something bizarre like a singing corpse,” he said. “I’ve spent my life fighting the idea of being a piece of exquisitery on a table — trying just to be a singer, not a countertenor.” More

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      Onstage, It’s Finally Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas Again

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      The Rockettes are high-kicking their way through the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. The Sugarplum Fairy, after an unsought interregnum, is presiding over the Land of Sweets at the New York City Ballet. All around the country, choirs are singing hallelujahs in Handel’s “Messiah” and Scrooges are learning to replace bahs with blessings.After two years of Christmastime washouts — there was 2020, when live performance was still impossible in many places, and then last winter, when the Omicron wave stopped many productions — arts-lovers and arts institutions say that they are determined that this will be their first fully staged holiday in three years.“It feels absolutely like the first Christmas post-Covid — there are more tourists in town, Times Square feels very alive again, people are venturing out in a way that I haven’t witnessed since 2019, and sales are more robust across the board,” said Eva Price, a Broadway producer whose musical last year, “Jagged Little Pill,” permanently closed as Omicron bore down, but whose new musical, “& Juliet,” is thriving as this year’s holidays near.Performances of holiday fare, including “The Nutcracker,” Handel’s “Messiah” and, here, “A Christmas Carol,” have become treasured rituals for many families.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesFor arts lovers and arts presenters, late December looms large. Performances of “The Nutcracker,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Messiah” are cherished holiday traditions for many families. Those events are also vital sources of revenue for the organizations that present them. And on Broadway, year-end is when houses are fullest and grosses are highest.“‘A Christmas Carol’ is the lifeblood of our institution,” said Kevin Moriarty, the artistic director of Dallas Theater Center, which first staged an adaptation of the Dickens classic in 1969, and had been doing so annually since 1979 until the pandemic. Most seasons, the play is the theater’s top seller.Last year, Moriarty’s effort to bring the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future back onstage — still with mask and vaccine requirements for the audience — faltered when Omicron hit, and the final 11 days of the run were canceled. “It just felt like the knockout blow we hadn’t seen coming — it felt like things will never get back to normal,” Moriarty said.Handel’s “Messiah” was back at Trinity Church Wall Street in Manhattan. Calla Kessler for The New York TimesDallas was one of many arts institutions wounded by Omicron. The Center Theater Group of Los Angeles canceled 22 of 40 scheduled performances of “A Christmas Carol,” losing about $1.5 million. On Broadway, grosses dropped 57 percent from Thanksgiving week to Christmas week, when 128 performances were canceled. Radio City Music Hall ended its run of the “Christmas Spectacular” with the Rockettes more than a week before Christmas. And the New York City Ballet canceled 17 of 47 scheduled performances of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” costing it about $5 million.“The virus just made it impossible to go on,” said Katherine E. Brown, the executive director of the New York City Ballet, where “The Nutcracker” has been a tradition since 1954. “It was more than a little depressing, and there were lots of disappointed people, onstage and off.”This year: so far, so good. “It’s going really well,” Brown said. “I don’t want to tempt the fates by saying that too loudly, but it’s actually back to prepandemic levels, and even slightly higher. It feels like we’re really back, and the energy in the houses is just phenomenal.”Of course there are still viruses in the air this year: public health officials are warning of a “tripledemic” of the coronavirus, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, known as R.S.V. Covid cases and hospitalizations have risen nationally since Thanksgiving, and New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, donned a face mask on Tuesday as he urged New Yorkers to take precautions. One new Broadway play, “The Collaboration,” had to cancel several performances this week, including its opening night, after someone in the company tested positive for the coronavirus.But with Christmas just days away, there have yet to be the wholesale closings that marred last year. And now most people over six months old can be vaccinated, and there is a new bivalent vaccine, lowering both risk and anxiety.“We learned a lot from last year: there are more understudies in place, there is more crew coverage, and we have contingency plans that feel more spelled out,” Price said. Brown agreed, saying, “Through the school of hard knocks, we’re better at managing through it.”“George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” is being staged once again by New York City Ballet, which had to cut its run short last winter because of Omicron. Sterling Hyltin danced the Sugarplum Fairy in a performance last month. Erin BaianoThe upheaval last winter upended many holiday plans.Mike Rhone, a quality assurance engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., had tickets to the Broadway musicals “Hadestown,” “Flying Over Sunset” and “Caroline, or Change,” and planned to propose to his partner in front of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.Instead he proposed at home, on the couch. But they’ll try again this year, with tickets to “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Ohio State Murders,” “Merrily We Roll Along” and the Rockettes. “We’ll definitely get that photo in front of the Rockefeller Center tree,” Rhone said, “just as married people instead of newly-engaged.”Shannon Buster, a civil engineer from Kansas City, Mo., had tickets last year to several Broadway shows and a set of hard-to-score restaurant reservations. “The night before we left, we watched handsome David Muir deliver dire news about Omicron surging, Broadway shows closing, restaurants closing, and we canceled,” she said. This year, she was determined to make the trip happen: “I swear by all that is holy that even an outbreak of rabid, flesh-eating bacteria will not keep me from it.” Last weekend, she and her husband made the delayed trip, trying out some new restaurants and seeing “Death of a Salesman” and “A Strange Loop.”For performers, this year is a welcome relief.Scott Mello, a tenor, has been singing Handel’s “Messiah” at Trinity Church Wall Street each Christmas season since 2015. Last year he found himself singing the “Messiah” at home, in the shower, but it wasn’t the same. “It didn’t feel like Christmas,” he said. This year, he added, “feels like an unveiling.”Ashley Hod, a soloist with New York City Ballet, has been part of its “Nutcracker” for much of her life — she performed in it as a child, when she was studying at the ballet’s school, and joined the cast as an apprentice in 2012; since then she has performed most of the women’s roles. Last year she rehearsed for two months to get ready to go on as the Sugarplum Fairy, but the show was canceled before her turn arrived.“It was devastating,” she said.This year, she’s on as a soloist, and thrilled. “We all have a new appreciation for it,” she said. “Everyone feels really lucky to be back.”On Broadway, things are looking up: Thanksgiving week was the top-grossing week since theaters reopened. And there are other signs of seasonal spending: Jefferson Mays’s virtuosic one-man version of “A Christmas Carol,” which he performed without an audience for streaming when the pandemic made in-person performances impossible, finally made it to Broadway, and is selling strongly as Christmas approaches.Beyond Broadway, things are better too. In New Orleans on Tuesday night, Christmas Without Tears returned — it’s a rambunctious and star-studded annual variety show hosted by the performers Harry Shearer and Judith Owen to raise money for charity (this year, Innocence Project New Orleans).Some “Messiah” fans seemed to be in the Christmas spirit. Calla Kessler for The New York Times“The audience was so primed, ready, and wanting the show,” Owen said. “It was like they’d waited two years for this.”But there are also reasons for sobriety: Broadway’s overall grosses this season are still about 13 percent below what they were in 2019, and this fall a number of shows, struggling to find audiences, have been forced to close. Around the country, many performing arts organizations have been unable to bring audiences back at prepandemic levels.Not everyone is rushing back. Erich Meager, a visual artist in Palm Springs, had booked 10 shows over six nights last December. Then the Rockettes closed, then “Jagged Little Pill,” then two more. “Each morning we would wake up and see what shows were canceled and search for replacements, a less than ideal theater experience,” he said. “This year we are staying close to home for the holidays, but next year we’ll be back.”But many patrons are ready to celebrate.“There have been so many virtual performances, but it’s not really the same thing,” said Luciana Sikula, a Manhattan fashion industry worker who had been attending a performance of “Messiah” annually at Trinity Church Wall Street until the pandemic, and finally got to experience it again in person again this month.Jeffrey Carter, a music professor from St. Louis who had booked and canceled five trips to New York since the pandemic began, finally made it this week; he checked out the new Museum of Broadway as well as an exhibit at the Grolier Club, caught the Oratorio Society of New York’s “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall, and saw “A Man of No Importance,” “A Strange Loop” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” “I’m packing in N.Y.C. at Christmastime in four days and four nights,” he said, “and I’m catching up — in person — with people I love.” More

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      Around New York, Different Ways of Hearing Handel’s ‘Messiah’

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      Two performances, at Trinity Church Wall Street and the New York Philharmonic, were similar yet showed how beauty emerges in divergence.We have arrived at that point in the holiday season when it seems as though you could attend a different performance of Handel’s “Messiah” every few days.On Friday and Saturday, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street returned to their newly restored home, Trinity Church Wall Street, for their first “Messiah” there since 2018. The fresh stained-glass facade, illuminated from within, shined like a beacon to concertgoers approaching from down the street. Inside, the narrow nave seemed to huddle everyone together for a communal purpose.A few days later, on Tuesday, the New York Philharmonic, joined by the Handel and Haydn Society, began a five-day “Messiah” run at its own recently remodeled home, David Geffen Hall. The lobby — conceived as a gathering space with seating areas, a bar and furnishings so mundane they must have been designed to be unintimidating — bustled with audience members and laptop users. Poinsettias lined the brightly lit stage in the auditorium.The venues did more than set a mood; they participated in the performance. Each one’s distinctive acoustics complemented the ensemble’s style. If Trinity felt more immersive, and the Philharmonic more pro forma, they both offered memorable qualities that made a case for the city’s annual “Messiah” abundance.The Trinity players were performing “Messiah” in their home venue for the first time since 2018.Calla KesslerIn the coming days, the festivities accelerate. Kent Tritle leads two ensembles in “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall: on Monday, the Oratorio Society of New York, which takes a cast of hundreds approach with its massive choir; and on Dec. 21, Musica Sacra, which uses Baroque bows to add a dash of period style. The National Chorale will rent Geffen Hall for a participatory “sing-in” on Sunday. And there are free “Messiah” singalongs at Christ Church Riverdale in the Bronx on Saturday, and “Hallelujah” flash mobs around Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 21.Trinity, which offered one of the first performances of “Messiah” in New York, in 1770, and the Philharmonic, whose founder conducted its first full concert in the city, can both lay claim to a piece of the work’s history. This season, both had the advantage of a Baroque-music specialist at the helm, with Andrew Megill at Trinity and Masaaki Suzuki at the Philharmonic. They even used the same performing edition from Oxford University Press.But beauty emerged in the places where they diverged.Trinity’s period-instrument ensemble and choir produce a light, precise, nimble sound that gains warmth and richness in the church’s acoustic. At Saturday’s performance, which was livestreamed, the use of an organ, played by Avi Stein, as opposed to a harpsichord, provided a mellow, cloudlike underlay. The string players rendered every flourish as fresh arcs of sound.The countertenor Reginald Mobley, front, at David Geffen Hall, where Masaaki Suzuki led the New York Philharmonic in “Messiah.”Chris LeeTo get a sense of just how well-drilled Trinity’s choir is, you can strip away the church acoustic by watching a video of its 2019 “Messiah,” conducted by Julian Wachner at St. Paul’s Chapel while its home church was being renovated. In the chorus “And he shall purify,” taken at a breakneck yet sprightly pace, the notes tumble evenly in time.The Philharmonic uses modern instruments whose boldness gains clarity in the clean resonance of its new auditorium. In the opening Symphony, the players sliced through the air with dramatic fervor, their trills landing a little heavily in Suzuki’s stately tempo. The harpsichord, folded into the texture, emitted an appealingly gentle tinkle. Over the course of the evening, though, Suzuki’s tempos lagged, and the players seemed to meander through the music unless it had theatrical flair — common in Handel’s operas, but rare here.Where Trinity’s choir prizes dexterity, the choristers of the Handel and Haydn Society make evocative use of timbral contrast. In “And he shall purify,” the choral sections stacked atop one another in staggered entrances that amassed into a smoothly luxuriant texture. “For unto us a child is born” was a marvel of color: The tenors offered a sense of wonder; the altos, excitement; the basses, appreciation; the sopranos, confidence.The baritone Jonathon Adams made a singular Philharmonic debut. Adams, who identifies as two-spirit — the term used by Indigenous communities for those who are nonbinary — did not put on airs. Dressed humbly in loose black clothes, they sometimes hunched over their score, almost crumpling into it, before opening their mouth to reveal a magnificently sonorous timbre. Adams enunciated words like a deep-toned voice-over artist and used classic Handelian word painting in the aria “The people that walked in darkness,” adopting a shadowy tone before opening up into resplendent high notes on the word “light.” This was good old-fashioned oratorio style, in which singing is an elevated form of recitation.For its “Messiah,” the Philharmonic was joined by the Handel and Haydn Society chorus.Chris LeeThe Philharmonic’s other soloists included the soprano Sherezade Panthaki, who scrupulously shaped her music by approaching top notes with a diminuendo. In slow passages, the countertenor Reginald Mobley spun a gossamer sound that frayed at faster tempos. The tenor Leif Aruhn-Solén, whose glimmering voice didn’t cut in any register, showed questionable taste in ornaments, dynamic contrast and his pantomime of the text.Trinity doled out Handel’s solos to the members of its choir. Many of them, with vocal techniques built for tonal blend and rhythmic precision in a chorus, favored a straight tone that gleamed like white light but also exposed waywardness in pitch. Still, period style doesn’t mean stilted: Some of the singing in the more fiery arias was positively gutsy. Male altos, who created an intriguing softness within the aural fabric of the chorus, contributed solos so subtle they almost evaporated. The soprano Shabnam Abedi showed lovely warmth in “How beautiful are the feet”; and the bass-baritone Brian Mextorf had a light, handsome tone in “The trumpet shall sound.”Trinity would appear to have the more heartfelt and historically informed performance but for one moment at the Philharmonic: As the audience in Geffen Hall stood in respectful attention for the exalted music of “Hallelujah,” Adams could be seen at the side of the stage, singing heartily with the bass section.As Clifford Bartlett, the editor of the Oxford edition, noted in his introduction to the score, the soloists in Handel’s time likely sang the choruses as well. I couldn’t hear Adams, but I shared the reaction of their fellow soloists, who appeared both delighted and disarmed by Adams’s sincerity of expression — a reminder that “Messiah,” after all the variance in instrumentation, style and performance practice, is an act of community. More

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      A ‘Nutcracker’ Performance Is Canceled, as the Virus Halts Holiday Shows

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      New York City Ballet canceled Tuesday night’s performance, and a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at Carnegie Hall was called off.New York City Ballet canceled a performance of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” on Tuesday after several people involved in the production tested positive for the coronavirus, in the latest sign of how the surge in cases is disrupting attempts to bring back some of the city’s most beloved holiday performances.As the production, one of City Ballet’s most popular, was called off at Lincoln Center, plans to fill Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening with the “Hallelujah” chorus were canceled when Music Sacra postponed a performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” citing the virus. And there are no more holiday kicklines at Radio City Music Hall: The remaining performances of the “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” were canceled Friday.The cancellations came shortly after it was announced that some of Broadway’s biggest hits would not resume until after Christmas, forgoing one of their most lucrative periods of the year amid concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant.It was not immediately clear when performances of “The Nutcracker” would return.“We are very disappointed to have to cancel this evening’s performance,” Jonathan Stafford, the company’s artistic director, said in a statement, “but the safety of our artists, staff and audiences has been New York City Ballet’s No. 1 priority since the Covid-19 pandemic began.”The company has worked hard to bring back the holiday favorite under difficult circumstances. It turned to a cast of dancers 12 and older — it typically casts younger, smaller children as its angels, soldiers and mice, and for its party scene — since only children of those ages were eligible for vaccinations when rehearsals began in the fall.The company said that ticket holders could exchange tickets for a future performance, get refunds or donate the tickets to the company. Music Sacra, which postponed its Tuesday night performance because of positive coronavirus tests among members of its performing ensemble, said that it would perform later this season at Carnegie Hall.It is not only New York that is seeing holiday performances canceled. A number of performances of “A Christmas Carol” at the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles were recently canceled, with the theater saying that it would not come back until after Christmas. More

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      Review: ‘Messiah’ Brings the New York Philharmonic to Church

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      Jeannette Sorrell led superb voices and a stylish orchestra in Handel’s classic of the holiday season at Riverside Church.When performing arts institutions reopened in New York this fall, there were serious fears that audiences would stay away. But while ticket sales for classical music and opera have reportedly been soft elsewhere in the country, most of the events I’ve attended here in the city have had sizable audiences.So it was on Tuesday, when the New York Philharmonic — joined by Apollo’s Singers, the chorus of the early-music ensemble Apollo’s Fire, and four superb vocal soloists, all led by Jeannette Sorrell — gave a splendid performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at Riverside Church.Before the concert, ticket holders waited patiently in a line that circled the block to enter the church, after going through a vaccination check and temperature reading. With seating for about 1,430 inside, the performance was sold out. (There are limited tickets through Saturday.)“Messiah” is so familiar that it’s difficult for a performance to stand out. But this one did — not because Sorrell brought any striking interpretive approach to the score, but because she guided a lithe, glowing and elegant performance from the fine soloists, stirring chorus and orchestra.This was the Philharmonic debut of Sorrell, who founded Apollo’s Fire, based in Cleveland, 30 years ago. Starting with the Sinfonia, the players brought qualities associated with early music to bear: focused sound (with just a touch of vibrato), supple flow and clear articulation.Though there was wonderful vitality in the performance, Sorrell tapped into the melancholic underside of Handel’s work, even during spirited choruses — sung with rich, robust sound and crisp diction by Apollo’s Singers — and ardent arias. (She made some cuts to keep the evening, with an intermission, to two hours and 15 minutes.)This “Messiah” offered as rewarding a quartet of soloists as you are likely to hear this holiday season. The appealing tenor Nicholas Phan set the mood for the evening in the recitative “Comfort ye, my people,” performed with melting sound and beguiling sincerity, and the rousing aria “Ev’ry valley shall be exalted.”The soprano Amanda Forsythe, in her Philharmonic debut, sang with shimmering sound and tenderness. The formidable bass-baritone Kevin Deas brought chilling fervor to “Why do the nations so furiously rage together,” yet exuded palpable joy in “The trumpet shall sound” (abetted by Christopher Martin’s clarion trumpet playing).Then there was the remarkable countertenor John Holiday, also making his Philharmonic debut, who is having a momentous week in New York. He recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Orpheus’s double in Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice,” a role he created when the work premiered in Los Angeles in February 2020. (Holiday will sing the final performance of the opera on Thursday, his only night off from this string of “Messiah” performances.)His gleaming voice is natural and full-bodied, even in its top range. And there is almost a baritonal cast to his singing when he dips lower. Beyond his sound, the directness and charismatic intensity of his singing were captivating. An auspicious debut.At the end, the audience, having gone through some rigors to enter the church, was in no hurry to leave, as a hearty ovation went on.New York PhilharmonicThrough Saturday at Riverside Church, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Meet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This Year

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMeet the People Who Can’t Bring You ‘Messiah’ This YearListen as nine performers guide you through the emotional arc of Handel’s classic, from comfort to grief to jubilation.Dec. 23, 2020, 11:46 a.m. ETEvery year, Handel’s “Messiah” is a communal ritual — a glittering parade of recitatives, arias and choruses that binds listeners and performers together in a story of promise, betrayal and redemption.But not this year. In 2020 the oratorio, if you listen to it at all, will be by necessity a private matter. And many artists for whom it is a beloved (and remunerative) staple remain almost entirely out of work.In this context, the emotional arc of “Messiah” — from comfort to grief to eventual relief — can feel more powerful than ever. Here, listen along as seven singers and two conductors offer a behind-the-music guide through the work.Brian Giebler, tenor: ‘Comfort ye’When you step up to the stage at the beginning of “Messiah,” every eye in the room turns to you. For the next three minutes you have complete command over everyone’s emotions.“Comfort ye” is my moment to take everyone’s anxiety, and pause for a second to reflect on why we’re here. You come after the overture, which is this almost chaotic moment, like everybody bustling about trying to get presents, or running to Carnegie Hall after a busy day of work. And then the beginning of “Comfort ye” is so solemn.What I’m after is a sense of calm. It’s all about long lines. Baroque ornamentation is fun, but here, it’s about taking time and not doing anything too flashy.Luthien Brackett, mezzo-soprano: ‘O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion’It’s a bubbling up of excitement, this secret you can’t wait to tell.It starts with exuberant champagne bubbles in the strings, and by the time you’re ready to sing you almost can’t contain your excitement. It’s like you’re addressing a friend who’s been grieving and maybe has been home alone for a while, and you come over and say, OK, get your coat on, we’re going to have a great time: “Get thee up into the high mountains!”There’s healing, as well. Those exuberant string notes with that wonderful contrast between the high and the low feel like a weight is being lifted. You have this energy you didn’t know you possessed. The aria goes straight into a chorus and everybody joins in.Joélle Harvey, soprano: ‘Rejoice greatly’The soprano performs in the Handel and Haydn Society’s 2020 version of “Messiah.”CreditCredit…Handel and Haydn SocietyThe music sounds like skipping through a meadow. I don’t know how you can say the words “rejoice greatly” without smiling. But the challenge is how to make the joy last so it doesn’t feel false or overdone. In the da capo section — on the words “Shout! Shout!” — instead of letting them get louder, I now make it more internal. Something to rev yourself up.Straight from the beginning, the phrases expand with each iteration. And the melismatic passages are exciting, almost like a game. Once you’re past the technical part of it, it’s very easy to find the playfulness in this aria. The da capo is ecstatic, with ornaments on top of ornaments.Reginald Mobley, countertenor: ‘He was despised’With its limited range and simple placement of notes, this is a piece that needs more than a park and bark. This is an aria that needs more than a big-haired Texan soprano spinning some tone for an expanse of quite a bit of an hour. You as the artist are the conduit: You have to be a prism for this incredibly heavy emotion that sets the stage for the Passion portion of “Messiah.”If you speed up the “A” section and slow down the “B” section — which usually sounds like a cavalry charge — then you can hear the flagellation, you hear Christ being tortured. My job is to transmit the personal horror and shame of being responsible.In 2014 I was singing the aria in Kansas City. This was the year of the Ferguson riots following the killing of Michael Brown. As I was singing, I thought of him and all the others who have been murdered by an unjust system. I thought, I get to be a survivor and tell the story of my brothers, my sisters, who were scorned and shamed and spited and spat upon. And I have to carry that shame: of what Americans should feel allowing the system to go on as long as it has.Joe Miller, conductor: ‘All we like sheep’What Handel is good at doing is creating amazing emotional contrast. At the very end of this piece is the crux of humanity: The iniquity of everyone is going to be laid on this one person. Up until then you have this comedy of sheep turning around and running away — I always think of an English sheepdog trying to round everyone up — and all of a sudden it comes down to this very profound moment.In the runs, everyone in the choir gets to weave and turn away. And then people sing “Everyone to his own way” over and over, and it’s all on one note, like everyone running into a fence and not knowing what to do.Jonathan Woody, bass-baritone: ‘Why do the nations so furiously rage together’I performed “Messiah” in Kansas City in December 2016. The recent election was on everyone’s mind. In between the dress rehearsal and the concert I read about a politician who, speaking about the Obamas, said something about Michelle returning to the Serengeti to live as a man. I read it on my phone and it broke my heart. In performance that day, what I was really doing was asking the people in the audience: Why do we hate each other, mistrust each other, dehumanize each other?I look around the world that we live in where we continue to treat people terribly. When Handel sets these rage arias, I get the sense that he understood that also. The world he lived in was not any less tumultuous than the one we live in today. I hear it in the music, in the intensity of the string figures, those 16th notes. I hear that angst.Kent Tritle, conductor: ‘Hallelujah’So much of the magic is the sheer jubilation that Handel conjures. The “Hallelujah” chorus sets out a firm, memorable exposition and then takes us to what is a short but extremely touching section about transformation. Then, through a sequence of sequentially rising pedal points on the words “King of kings,” he creates a sense of uplift, followed by a compaction of “Hallelujahs” as they barrel toward that cliff’s edge before the final absolute affirmation. It’s an incredible structure.When everyone in the hall rises from their seats it’s an amazing moment. You feel the energy shift in the house. And I see the glow on the faces of the choir as though they are a mirror reflecting what the audience is doing. Because of that choreographic moment, you get the sense that we are really on the same level. It’s magical and hair-raising.Jolle Greenleaf, soprano: ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’I see this as an opportunity to share a message of hope and love during a season when it’s getting darker, when people are looking for meaningful connections and ways to manage their emotions through the holidays. I try to look out at the audience and make as many personal connections with the people there so that they can feel that there truly is hope, that I’m a vessel for that hope.The tune feels very expansive. It just glides in a way that you can add ornaments to it. Those ornaments help create the gold filigree that you would see in a tapestry. Of course there is acknowledgment of darkness: “Though worms destroy this body.” I was 35 when I was diagnosed with cancer. It made everything related to death feel more fresh and raw and scary. But there’s power in reclaiming that and singing about hope despite that fear.Dashon Burton, bass-baritone: ‘The trumpet shall sound’This aria is about awe in every possible form. There’s the reverent awe of someone shocked into paying attention, hearing this mystery that says that no matter who you are, you are going to be raised after death, and no matter what trials you’ve gone through, you will have everlasting life.And then it’s the amazing sense of awe you get from hearing a rare trumpet solo. I just love that sense of grandeur: Even though it is a triumphant piece there is such mystery and quietude.The “B” section is a moment for reflection. As if shocked by this awesome presence, you need to take a moment: What have I just experienced? It’s a joy to sing those lines in one breath, to heighten the drama and really cinch these incredibly long phrases together. And to come back to the “A” section, now highly ornamented with all the regalia of your own vocal prowess and the entire emotional experience of having gone through this story. Not only to see, but to share. It’s the greatest moment onstage to be able to say to the audience: This is for you and this is with you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      A ‘Messiah’ for the Multitudes, Freed From History’s Bonds

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyA ‘Messiah’ for the Multitudes, Freed From History’s BondsA polyglot, nonsectarian, gender-inclusive film from Canada remakes the Handel classic for today’s world.Half of the 12 soloists in “Messiah/Complex” are Indigenous, including Diyet van Lieshout, a mezzo-soprano from Yukon, who is filmed traipsing through the snow in her traditional mukluk boots.Credit…Alistair MaitlandDec. 21, 2020A gay Chinese-Canadian tenor struts through the streets of Vancouver, joyously proclaiming that “ev’ry valley shall be exalted” as the camera focuses in on his six-inch-high stiletto heels.A Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano reimagines Jesus as a Muslim woman in a head scarf.In Yukon, an Indigenous singer praises the remote snow-covered landscape in Southern Tutchone, the language of her ancestors.“This is not your grandparents’ ‘Messiah,’” Spencer Britten, the tenor in heels, said in an interview. He and the other performers are part of “Messiah/Complex,” an iconoclastic new production of Handel’s classic oratorio, which draws on biblical texts to form a stylized narrative of suffering, hope and redemption.Spencer Britten, a gay Chinese-Canadian tenor, struts through the streets of Vancouver in this reimagined “Messiah.”Credit…Georgia Street MediaAn 80-minute film featuring a dozen soloists from all corners of the country, this unabashed celebration of Canadian multiculturalism has recast the work as a series of deeply personal video narratives. (The performance will be streaming through Jan. 7.)The brainchild of Joel Ivany, a Broadway-loving son of pastors, and his Toronto indie opera company, Against the Grain Theater, in collaboration with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, “Messiah/Complex” seeks to revamp a Christmas favorite for a world upended by a pandemic and a renewed consciousness about the rights of Black people and other minorities.It mixes the sacred and profane as it journeys from Canada’s Far North to an urban hockey rink, engaging in a bit of high camp and translating passages into six languages, including Arabic, French, Dene and Inuttitut. The text Mr. Britten sings has been retooled as a coming-out anthem for a young man confronting his conservative Chinese relatives.The production may send some purists running. One comment on YouTube called it “blasphemy.” But the critical reception has been more enthusiastic; The Globe and Mail, a leading national newspaper, lauded a “daring interpretation” that nevertheless “might get a rise out of the ‘Hallelujah’ people.” (The stalwart “Hallelujah” chorus, by the way, is performed by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, whose members came together to record the vocals in a space divided into makeshift booths with shower curtains to observe pandemic health protocols. The group was later filmed lip-syncing it — socially distanced — in downtown Toronto.)At a time when opera houses and concert halls around the globe have been shuttered by the coronavirus and are battling to remain relevant, Mr. Ivany said he wanted to create a “Messiah” befitting the moment. He added that he hoped the online production, initially conceived for Toronto’s Winter Garden Theater, would attract a younger audience that didn’t usually come to the opera.“As the Black Lives Matter protests were happening across the world, the silence in the classical music world was deafening, and I thought, ‘What if every soloist in this “Messiah” was Indigenous, Black or a person of color?’” said Mr. Ivany, who previously staged “La Bohème” in a pub. Mindful, he added, that he was “a white man interpreting a piece by a dead European male,” he partnered with Reneltta Arluk, an Indigenous theater director based in Alberta.The mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb changed the words of her aria, “He was despised,” to “She is despised,” to evoke herself and her Muslim mother.Credit…Huei LinThis reimagining of Handel, Ms. Arluk said, was also a way to grapple with recent research suggesting that the German-born composer had investments in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. “We can’t control the actions of composers hundreds of years ago,” she said. “But we can claim Handel’s work in our voices.”“Messiah/Complex” is hardly the first adjustment to “Messiah,” which was reworked by Mozart in 1789 and has since been interpreted by rock guitarists and gospel and hip-hop artists. Handel himself was initially accused of sacrilege in some orthodox quarters for transposing the biblical text.“Can it make you angry that we dared to do such a thing, that we provoked you?” said Matthew Loden, the chief executive of the Toronto Symphony. “That is what art is supposed to do.”In Canada, where the global reckoning about systemic racism has spawned debate about the dearth of minority voices represented in popular culture, the production is also being seen as a cultural corrective of sorts. And all the more so since the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a priority of reconciling with Indigenous peoples.In 2018 “Slav,” a theater production by the prominent Canadian director Robert Lepage, closed early at the Montreal International Jazz Festival following an outcry because a majority-white cast was portraying Black slaves. Indigenous artists also lashed out after another Lepage production, “Kanata,” which recounts aspects of Indigenous Canadians’ subjugation by white people, did not include any Indigenous Canadians in the cast.Ms. van Lieshout, in red coat, said that translating her aria into Southern Tutchone, her First Nations language, had been a way to “decolonize myself.”Credit…Alistair MaitlandHalf of the 12 soloists in “Messiah/Complex” are Indigenous. Diyet van Lieshout, the mezzo-soprano from Yukon, is filmed traipsing through the snow in her traditional mukluk boots. She said that translating her aria, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion,” into Southern Tutchone, her First Nations language, with the help of her 91-year-old grandmother had been nothing less than a way to “decolonize myself.”In the 1960s, she said, her mother, like other Indigenous children, had been taken from her family at the age of 5 and sent to a government-sponsored residential school run by the church, where she was forbidden to speak her language. (In 2015, a government commission said that such schools, which were in operation for over a century, “can best be described as ‘cultural genocide.’”)Ms. van Lieshout said she had struggled to reconcile her love of church music with the suffering her mother had endured. She said that singing “O thou that tellest” in her native tongue had “given me a reason to like Handel again.”Deantha Edmunds, an Inuk soprano who translated her part into her native Inuttitut, said showcasing Indigenous opera divas would also help combat the stereotype that people like her were more likely to be seen hunting than singing arias. In fact, she said, classical music had been brought to Inuit communities in her native Labrador, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, by European missionaries from Moravia about 250 years ago. She recalled how her father used to serenade the family over Christmas by singing “Silent Night” in English, German and Inuttitut.Deantha Edmunds, an Inuk soprano, translated her part into her native Inuttitut.Credit…Justin OakeyPerhaps the most intense intervention is that of Rihab Chaieb, a Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano who has sung often with the Metropolitan Opera. She removed Jesus from her aria altogether, changing “He was despised” to “She is despised,” to evoke herself and her Muslim mother.Quebec recently passed a law banning teachers, and other public sector workers from wearing religious symbols like head scarves while at work. Ms. Chaieb said neighbors in Montreal had called her veiled mother a terrorist, inspiring this singer to use Handel’s music to express her estrangement.In her segment, Ms. Chaieb is portrayed in black and white as a dutiful daughter, drinking tea in her mother’s apartment. But when she is shown, in color, under a graffiti-splattered underpass in Montreal, her barely submerged pain gradually crescendos as she sings in her native French.“My reinterpretation of the ‘Messiah’ is about me feeling despised and rejected as a first-generation immigrant in Montreal,” she said. “Like me, Jesus felt wretched and despised. But by taking Jesus out of the equation and making it more personal, I have reclaimed the ‘Messiah’ as my own.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More