REVIEW
| PROGRAM Pēteris Vasks – Lūgšana mātei (Prayer for a Mother) Lili Boulanger – Psalm 129 Maurice Ravel – 'Kaddisch' from Deux mélodies hébraïques Lili Boulanger – Vieille prière bouddhique (Old Buddhist Prayer) Pēteris Vasks – Dona nobis pacem INTERVAL Francis Poulenc – Gloria | Sunday 20 March 2022, 4pm Adelaide Festival Theatre Benjamin Northey, conductor Carl Crossin & Karl Geiger, choral directors Stacey Alleaume, soprano Nicholas Jones, tenor Adelaide Symphony Orchestra |
This one-off performance in Adelaide's Festival Theatre was one of the closing events of the 2022 Adelaide Festival, held on the final Sunday afternoon. By this stage in March, a sleepy, after-dinner feeling is kicking in around the city. Having loaded their plates with Fringe and Festival offerings (not to mention WOMADelaide), most Adelaideans are feeling more than sated when it comes to the arts, and just want something light to "fill up the corners". Prayer for the Living wasn't that exactly, yet the simplicity and clarity of its presentation (not to mention the fact that we've all been starved of massed choral singing) made it a joyful event, despite the gravity of its subject matter.
A large, socially-distanced choir (mostly constituting the Elder Conservatorium Chorale and the Graduate Singers) took up the entire stage, spread across the tiers in Carl Crossin's much-loved 'random' formation – that is, with all voice types mingled together. I wondered later if this was wise, given that the choir sounded rather soft and tentative in the first half, as though the singers could barely hear one other. A smattering of masks lingered on a few of the choristers' faces, a reminder to be thankful that such an event is even possible. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, meanwhile, was crammed below in the pit.
At the back of the stage was a square screen (its top frustratingly cut off for those of us in the cheap seats) which was used throughout to display a combination of live close-up video footage of the performers and (in the first half) photos from the Red Cross archives. Occasionally we also got some of the text that was being sung, although far less than I would have liked. There seemed to be a desire to present the music as abstractly as possible, probably to broaden its appeal and message.
Yet I was impressed at how clear and coherent the message of the concert came across. The first half of the concert was presented as a prayer for world peace – 'prayer' here covering a spectrum from vague ideal to intense longing to hopeful actual request. All five pieces before interval were performed back-to-back without applause, giving it more the feeling of a ritual than a performance, especially since the works matched and complemented each other so well. I was not in possession of a program booklet, but apparently Alan John was the curator (if so, he deserved more credit). The projected photos from famines, wars and refugee camps invited us to draw connections between what we were hearing and what we knew about the outside world. The prayer was thus at least partially directed to the audience, almost as a challenge: "You also value peace, yes? Well, look around, the world is crying out for it. What are you going to do?"
Pēteris Vasks' Prayer for Mother began the ritual quietly, a clarinet solo gradually opening up over a haze of strings before Stacey Alleaume's warm soprano entered. The tenderness of motherhood was presented here (images complementing the music) as something extremely valuable but under threat: the first entry of the choir was pointedly on a tritone. The eerie end of the work, with the clarinet solo returning over a warm aleatoric choral 'cooing' from the choir, didn't quite live up to its potential magic in the unforgiving Festival Theatre acoustics. No thanks either to the usher whose radio kept crackling away in the near silence.
Lili Boulanger's dramatic setting of Psalm 129 for choir and large orchestra came next. A passionate cry against affliction and oppression, led by unison male voices, this is music of intense pain and anger, written during the First World War. Some indication of the text would have helped here, but the images and music nevertheless plunged us into the thick of a violent, unforgiving world.
Maurice Ravel's 'Kaddisch', his setting of a traditional Hebrew mourning song, was the expressive, personal heart of the set, its intricate melodic line sung with assurance by tenor Nicholas Jones. The projected images here spoke of death, the unanswered question.
Lili Boulanger's Old Buddhist Prayer is not the ethereal, meditative oasis one might expect. Its persistently repeated musical refrain suggests more the longing of its petition rather than the detached "let it be" philosophy it is asking for. This time the text was deemed worthy of translation, although it wasn't always easy to read over the changing images.
Vasks' Dona nobis pacem then took Boulanger's prayer even further, the repetitiveness of its phrases now suggesting desperation and perhaps even bitter resignation as the prayer seemed to go on and on, unanswered. And yet, there is a note – or rather, a modulation – of renewed hope towards the end, from somewhere... somewhere...
After the interval the mood shifted abruptly. Francis Poulenc's Gloria for soprano, choir and orchestra is a delightful musical patchwork of bright, bold colours in clear and distinctive patterns. It is also, of course, a hymn of praise to God, although once again the text was deemed redundant to enjoyment of the music (except for those of us already familiar with it). The orchestra was in great form here, and the choir sang much more confidently and with the necessary exuberance – you could tell they were enjoying it. Occasionally, however, the inadequacy of the stage setup was apparent – the choir never sounded quite together in their consonants, and got a step or two out of time with the distant orchestra in the jaunty 'Laudamus te'. Stacey Alleaume's voice was perfect for the soaring yet prayerful soprano solos, making the high notes sound easy, floating up to the tops of phrases ("Domine Deus") like incense.
Was it appropriate to be singing such joyful music after the serious prayers in the first half of the concert? Only if God is actually good, and does actually hear our prayers. Poulenc's "refreshingly human take on the Latin mass", as the Festival guide described it (as opposed to all those, you know, inhuman masses we know and hate) is either worshipping a worthy Creator and Saviour, who truly "takes away the sins of the world", or it's just a playful game. Or... could it be both?
4 stars
A large, socially-distanced choir (mostly constituting the Elder Conservatorium Chorale and the Graduate Singers) took up the entire stage, spread across the tiers in Carl Crossin's much-loved 'random' formation – that is, with all voice types mingled together. I wondered later if this was wise, given that the choir sounded rather soft and tentative in the first half, as though the singers could barely hear one other. A smattering of masks lingered on a few of the choristers' faces, a reminder to be thankful that such an event is even possible. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, meanwhile, was crammed below in the pit.
At the back of the stage was a square screen (its top frustratingly cut off for those of us in the cheap seats) which was used throughout to display a combination of live close-up video footage of the performers and (in the first half) photos from the Red Cross archives. Occasionally we also got some of the text that was being sung, although far less than I would have liked. There seemed to be a desire to present the music as abstractly as possible, probably to broaden its appeal and message.
Yet I was impressed at how clear and coherent the message of the concert came across. The first half of the concert was presented as a prayer for world peace – 'prayer' here covering a spectrum from vague ideal to intense longing to hopeful actual request. All five pieces before interval were performed back-to-back without applause, giving it more the feeling of a ritual than a performance, especially since the works matched and complemented each other so well. I was not in possession of a program booklet, but apparently Alan John was the curator (if so, he deserved more credit). The projected photos from famines, wars and refugee camps invited us to draw connections between what we were hearing and what we knew about the outside world. The prayer was thus at least partially directed to the audience, almost as a challenge: "You also value peace, yes? Well, look around, the world is crying out for it. What are you going to do?"
Pēteris Vasks' Prayer for Mother began the ritual quietly, a clarinet solo gradually opening up over a haze of strings before Stacey Alleaume's warm soprano entered. The tenderness of motherhood was presented here (images complementing the music) as something extremely valuable but under threat: the first entry of the choir was pointedly on a tritone. The eerie end of the work, with the clarinet solo returning over a warm aleatoric choral 'cooing' from the choir, didn't quite live up to its potential magic in the unforgiving Festival Theatre acoustics. No thanks either to the usher whose radio kept crackling away in the near silence.
Lili Boulanger's dramatic setting of Psalm 129 for choir and large orchestra came next. A passionate cry against affliction and oppression, led by unison male voices, this is music of intense pain and anger, written during the First World War. Some indication of the text would have helped here, but the images and music nevertheless plunged us into the thick of a violent, unforgiving world.
Maurice Ravel's 'Kaddisch', his setting of a traditional Hebrew mourning song, was the expressive, personal heart of the set, its intricate melodic line sung with assurance by tenor Nicholas Jones. The projected images here spoke of death, the unanswered question.
Lili Boulanger's Old Buddhist Prayer is not the ethereal, meditative oasis one might expect. Its persistently repeated musical refrain suggests more the longing of its petition rather than the detached "let it be" philosophy it is asking for. This time the text was deemed worthy of translation, although it wasn't always easy to read over the changing images.
Vasks' Dona nobis pacem then took Boulanger's prayer even further, the repetitiveness of its phrases now suggesting desperation and perhaps even bitter resignation as the prayer seemed to go on and on, unanswered. And yet, there is a note – or rather, a modulation – of renewed hope towards the end, from somewhere... somewhere...
After the interval the mood shifted abruptly. Francis Poulenc's Gloria for soprano, choir and orchestra is a delightful musical patchwork of bright, bold colours in clear and distinctive patterns. It is also, of course, a hymn of praise to God, although once again the text was deemed redundant to enjoyment of the music (except for those of us already familiar with it). The orchestra was in great form here, and the choir sang much more confidently and with the necessary exuberance – you could tell they were enjoying it. Occasionally, however, the inadequacy of the stage setup was apparent – the choir never sounded quite together in their consonants, and got a step or two out of time with the distant orchestra in the jaunty 'Laudamus te'. Stacey Alleaume's voice was perfect for the soaring yet prayerful soprano solos, making the high notes sound easy, floating up to the tops of phrases ("Domine Deus") like incense.
Was it appropriate to be singing such joyful music after the serious prayers in the first half of the concert? Only if God is actually good, and does actually hear our prayers. Poulenc's "refreshingly human take on the Latin mass", as the Festival guide described it (as opposed to all those, you know, inhuman masses we know and hate) is either worshipping a worthy Creator and Saviour, who truly "takes away the sins of the world", or it's just a playful game. Or... could it be both?
4 stars
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