Sorrell, Jeannette

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    Lincoln Center’s Rebranded Orchestra Settles Into Its Debut Season

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    Compared with previous seasons, recent concerts by the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center were refreshingly casual, but also more mixed.With a new name and a new music director, Lincoln Center’s summer orchestra is getting a fresh start this season. On the evidence of three concerts over the past week and a half, though, the newly minted Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center is turning its focus to an element that has always been there: the players themselves.Last year was the final summer of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, which for 21 years had been led by the beloved Louis Langrée. The renamed ensemble’s music director, Jonathon Heyward, was a companionable host recently at the first concert of its season, which allowed audience members to vote on the pieces they’d like to hear. Between movements, Heyward called on a few players at their music stands to talk about their love of the composers. Some remarks seemed well-rehearsed, others extemporaneous. But all of them were sweet.There has been some worry about the organization’s legacy — that change represents a repudiation of the orchestra’s repertoire and mission. At his final concerts, Langrée himself pleaded with the audience to return and support the players.This year, the onstage conversations felt calculated to build a rapport between the players and the audience. Attendees were also invited to mingle with the musicians in the lobby of David Geffen Hall after each concert. All that talking had an interesting outcome: It left me more invested in individual musicians when they eventually played.Kazem Abdullah led a program that included Brahms’s Violin Concerto, with Benjamin Beilman as the soloist.Lawrence Sumulong/Lincoln CenterAs in years past, each program was performed twice on consecutive nights. Avoiding heavy material, the concerts felt like a linen suit designed for comfort, ease and a touch of class on balmy days. There’s still substance, but it comes in the pleasing form of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Schumann (a Heyward favorite), rather than the portentous, densely textured works of Mahler and Strauss.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: An Unexpectedly Relevant Oratorio at the Philharmonic

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      Planned over a year ago, Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” was presented while the Israel-Hamas war unfolds in the Middle East.Handel is not a composer typically associated with controversy, but the New York Philharmonic found itself entering a difficult public discourse with its performances of the oratorio “Israel in Egypt” this week at David Geffen Hall.As thousands have died in the Israel-Hamas war, and as the conflict has inflamed tensions around the world, Cambridge University’s opera society has canceled a performance of Handel’s “Saul,” which depicts the Israelite David’s victory over the Philistine Goliath. That is the oratorio Handel wrote before “Israel in Egypt,” about a powerless people fleeing the subjugation of an oppressive state.“Israel in Egypt” is less dramatic than “Saul,” and for its concerts, the Philharmonic opted for a program note. In it, the organization’s leadership clarified that this week’s performances were planned more than a year ago and added, “What we could not have anticipated is recent world events, making the timing of this program particularly relevant.”The oratorio’s tale could have been a source of empathy and catharsis for audiences, but that’s not exactly the piece Handel wrote. For those familiar with “Messiah,” Handel’s other English-language oratorio that lifts its text from Scripture, “Israel in Egypt” is an oddity. Written almost entirely for choral forces, with few showpieces for the soloists, it narrates the Jewish exodus that Moses led from Egypt. To modern ears, the text painting of the 10 plagues is so lightweight that it verges on silliness: The orchestra leaps to depict frogs, buzzes for flies and thumps for hailstones.Still, the melancholy-saturated lamentation that opens the piece, and the triumphant choruses that close it, adds substance. And on Wednesday, the conductor and Baroque specialist Jeannette Sorrell led a sonorous performance, drawing captivating singing from the choristers of Apollo’s Fire and intermittently inspiring the Philharmonic’s players to embrace fleeter, Handelian style on their modern instruments.The Apollo’s Fire chorus, a gem of an ensemble, anchored the evening with a beguiling sound. In the big, unified moments, the voice parts stacked atop one another in pellucid columns. Tricky double choruses and fugues had a lucent, weightless, nimble quality.Sorrell’s brisk adaptation trims the score to roughly 80 minutes, which offset the orchestra’s occasionally slackened energy. She wisely reinstated the intensely emotional, sometimes cut lamentation (a decision she also made on a recently released recording with Apollo’s Fire). With a theatrical flourish, she cut short the Exodus section so that it concluded with a thrilling depiction of Pharaoh’s army drowning in the Red Sea.Among the vocal soloists, Amanda Forsythe demonstrated a limpid soprano in “Thou didst blow,” and Edward Vogel showed a rather appealing, midweight baritone in his insertion aria, “To God our strength” (aided by Christopher Martin’s dignified trumpet solo). The tenor Jacob Perry and the soprano Sonya Headlam filled their music with character, and the countertenor Cody Bowers sang with a beautifully shaped tone and enthusiasm to spare.Handel devoted much of the final section, “Moses’ Song,” to a triumphant account of the Red Sea’s parting. In “The depths have covered them,” the strings were as broad and far-reaching as the water’s surface. In the score and the story it recounts, the moment is a deus ex machina. Today, though, we do not live in a time of miracles.New York PhilharmonicPerformed on Wednesday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan. 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