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Reviews of Lance's Tanglewood Festival Chorus Performances |
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CONCERT REVIEW: Levine carries off grueling task with a flourish
By PETER M. KNAPP James Levine is definitely back. Just a week after his return to the podium after months-long recovery from a fall and rotator cuff surgery, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director led thrilling back-to-back performances of two blockbuster scores during the weekend at Tanglewood, a daunting feat for any conductor. Friday night the orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Concert reprised Arnold Schoenberg’s mighty late Romantic oratorio, ‘‘Gurrelieder,’’ a seldom-heard work presented in Symphony Hall with acclaim in February. Written for immense orchestra, ‘‘Songs of Gurre’’ relates the ill-fated love affair of the medieval Danish King Waldemar and Tove (Dove). Composed in the early 1900s, ‘‘Gurrelieder’’ predates Schoenberg’s ventures into 12-tone music, and indeed it’s no wonder he sought new paths after writing this monumental piece that carries romantic composition to its ultimate dimensions. As in Boston, orchestra and chorus sounded glorious in this opulently orchestrated score richly depicting nature and a vast range of human emotions. The love theme bloomed with memorable depth and sheen, while the Wild Hunt with the ricocheting men’s chorus sounded frighteningly unleashed. The mixed chorus made the concluding sunrise a stunning soundburst. Prefacing the work was the consoling ‘‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’’ from Brahms’ German Requiem in tribute to the treasured American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who so movingly sang the Wood Dove’s lament in February’s performances. Lieberson, who lived in Boston early in her important career and sang many performances there, died July 3. This time it was the esteemed German mezzo Waltraud Meier who delivered the grief-ridden announcement of Tove’s death with velvety tones and riveting intensity, ending with a spine-chilling, shed-filling cry of anguish. With her ample, lustrous soprano, Christine Brewer brought the requisite sense of rapture to Tove’s love songs, though sometimes she was covered by the orchestra’s volume and weight. A wider range of emotions, vocal color and sensitive projection of text came from tenor Johan Botha in his heroic depiction of King Waldemar’s tormented descent from joy to embittered despair. Botha has a big, thrusting voice with plenty of spin on it. He uses it with remarkable musicality and care for expressive delivery of text. Tenor Matthew Polenzani gave a vivacious account of Klaus the Jester’s monologue. Baritone Eike Wilm Schulte robustly delivered the Peasant’s complaint, and the veteran Waldemar Kmentt was again the deft narrator. Saturday night Levine conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in a tremendous performance of Richard Strauss’ ‘‘Elektra.’’ Sitting in with the gifted students attending America’s famed summer ‘‘finishing school’’ for musicians was a guest violinist, Raymond Gniewek, former longtime concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. ‘‘Elektra’’ is an enormous challenge for any orchestra. Premiered in 1909, the one-act opera uses a Freudian-tinged libretto by Hugo von Hoffmansthal based on Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy. Elektra lives only to avenge the murder of her father, Agamemnon, by her mother, Klytemnestra, and her stepfather, Aegisth. Bloody justice eventually is carried out by her brother, Orest. For this grisly tale Strauss used an orchestra of more than 100 instruments, producing violent music that hammers and writhes with undiluted torment, daring harmonies and slithering, complex harmonies. The orchestra sounded somewhat hard-edged and there were some raw patches - not entirely inappropriate in this opera - but there was fierce energy throughout and eventually the characteristic Straussian sound emerged. Once again one wondered how Levine produces music of such impact with so little motion and fuss. ‘‘Elektra’’ makes extreme demands on singers. The experienced international soloists, supplemented by Tanglewood fellows, weren’t given much of a break by being placed on a platform behind the orchestra, which sometimes overwhelmed them. Perhaps as a result, Australian soprano Lisa Gasteen, a noted Wagnerian soprano, sometimes sounded underpowered. She sang this grueling role commendably, however, and the quality and sheen of her voice was evident in the quieter passages and as the evening progressed. As her sister, Chrysothemis, who yearns for family and children rather than vengeance, Christine Brewer was first-rate. She sang with passion and power, evoking the humanity of the opera’s only soft and innocent character. The evening’s most memorable performance, however, came from the veteran English mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer. Her high-voltage, twitchy, guilt-ridden and fearful Klytemnestra was a full-blooded character, a physical and psychological wreck though still dangerous. And she retains the vocal oomph to ride over the orchestra. Excellent, too, was Alan Held, as the avenging Orest, intoning compassion for Elektra along with menace for his father’s killers in a strong, firm bass-baritone. The eminent former German heldentenor Siegfried Jerusalem deftly evoked the apprehension of the cowardly Aegisth. TANGLEWOOD Copyright 2006 The Patriot Ledger |
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The Patriot Ledger, 400 Crown Colony Drive |
