Word: chorused
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...runs through December 14 at Boston's Shubert Theatre, and will feature Dominique Labelle, David Walker, Ray Bauwens and Eric Owens, though the December 6 performance was held in Symphony Hall and featured counter-tenor Steven Rickards insteaof David Walker. Associate Conductor John Finney leads H&H's marvelous chorus and period orchestra. Despite the press of weekend afternoons during the holiday season, Sunday's matinee performance was packed, with not an empty seat visible. The audience was richly rewarded for their time and responded with a thunderous, almost raucous standing ovation after the final "Amen...
...some of the loveliest music in Messiah, and Bauwens proves himself wholly equal to it. His Part II recitatives, "All they that see Him laugh Him to scorn" and "Thy rebuke hath broken His heart," separated by the magnificent "He trusted in God that He would deliver Him" chorus, comprise a truly splendid few minutes. In contrast to Bauwens' clear, smooth timbre is the bass, Eric Owens, whose very deep, very dark-sounding voice seems almost to emerge from some inhuman source. This rumbling, rapid-vibratoed effect seems especially apt in the prophetic aria, "Darkness shall cover the earth...
...excellent chorus produces, as always, a wonderfully clear and unified sound, free of any imbalance between the various parts. Their synchrony is especially evident in the excellent consonant enunciation, particularly the many initial and final sibilants, which are perfectly coordinated and lightly treated. "And with his stripes we are healed," is a particularly fine example of the following lyricism the choir achieves throughout; "Surely he hath borne our griefs," against the gorgeous background of the orchestral part, is another. Remarkable, too, is the ending of "All we like sheep," which runs "And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity...
...truth, every moment of the performance brings the audience such joy that it is difficult indeed to remain demurely seated and silent. Not only is each element--soloists, chorus, orchestra--magnificent in itself, but all are expertly balanced and coordinated by Finney's direction, producing in totality a truly memorable Messiah. Anyone who's ever heard Messiah, or indeed anyone who hasn't, should attend this production to experience it as Handel might have imagined and hoped it should...
...with the Western musical idiom he usually works in. The movie teases us with this traditional music, but uses it only to underscore savagery and apparent backwardness; any scene of real emotional charge or import to the plot is backed up with a typical Western-style orchestra and chorus. At one point, the Africans seem to have converted to Christianity, as they apparently hold aloft and make supplications to a copy of the Bible, a turn of events more than a little disturbing and perverse...