Christine Goerke, soprano
Ian Bostridge, tenor
Thomas Quasthoff, bass-baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver, conductor)
PALS Children's Chorus (Johanna Hill Simpson, artistic director)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa (conductor)
It's not easy to write about a performance of such a work; any comment seems rather banal.
The WAR REQUIEM was, appropriately, the sole work on the program, and was presented without intermission.
This is a relatively familiar work to BSO audiences, since it was performed as recently as 1995 (with Vaness, Rolfe Johnson, and Luxon). More to the point, it's familiar to the orchestra, chorus, and conductor. Except for some rather ugly brass work (which is painfully exposed in this work), the BSO played superbly, and coordination between pit, orchestra, chorus, and soloists was terrific.
Kudos first to the choruses. The PALS chorus sang offstage (I think from the hallway outside the second balcony), and beautifully, with the technical accomplishment similar to the Tanglewood adult chorus, which is quite a feat, since I've never heard a better choir than the latter - what a joy it is to see a choir sing such a complex work from memory, with perfect rhythmic precision and intonation; their soft singing is a marvel.
Bostridge surprised me, in a positive way. On record, his voice has seemed to be rather insubstantial, and I was quite certain that he'd be outclassed and inaudible. Not so. It isn't a huge voice by any means, but it carried perfectly well to the back of the hall. It's not a voice or an approach to singing that I'd want to hear in operatic material (he's yet another singer who overutilizes straight tone to begin long, held notes), but in the "Pears' repertoire" that he appears to have chosen, he's fine. For me, his highlight was the duet in the Offeratorium, in which Britten quotes his Canticle "Abraham and Isaac", where Bostridge found exactly the right conversational tone for Isaac's "But where is the lamb for the burnt-offering".
Goerke was, in a word, superlative. On record, I'd grown used to Vishnevskaya, whose utterances are so different from the other soloists (due to her vocal technique and her heavily accented Latin) that they present a stark contrast between the Latin and vernacular portions. But in Goerke's hands, with her vastly superior vocal and linguistic skills, these passages are better integrated into the work's whole.
Despite these substantial contributions, Quasthoff was clearly the audience favorite. I measure this not merely by the amount of applause received at the end, but by the kind of attention given to him while he was singing. He consistently held the audience in rapt attention in a way that the others did only sporadically. Except for the gentleman next to me (who had a voice-clearing tic and insisted on following an orchestral score, requiring frequent page turns at inappropriate times), the audience seemed to hold its collective breath, allowing Quasthoff to sing as softly as he wished. "I am the enemy you killed, my friend" will haunt my memory for a long time.
William D. Kasimer
If you can get to Britten's War Requiem in Boston, go. As Bill Kassimer noted, it seems redundant almost to verbalize about it as the endeavor is first-rate throughout. The melding of intellect and feeling in today's performance rang true throughout. The artists--including Seiji--were always with the material, the verse seeming to spring from their mouths as if they were reflecting on one of the most awful experiences humans can take part in. I work with many people who have post-traumatic stress and the dignity imparted to their struggle by Owen's poems and the blending of the requiem mass with his verse is a stunning validation of the suffering people can endure; and in their own way perhaps overcome if one thinks death can be overcome...that's too personal to comment on for others.
Britten's achievement is monumental; the atmosphere repeatedly shocking and yet so humane; the musical effects are not effects; they are in the warp and weave of art trying to explain the unexplainable.
I had always fantasized about hearing Pears, Fischer-Dieskau and Vishnevskaya at the premiere. Casting those singers must have been a dream for Britten as well as an artistic realization of the highest level. Goerke, Quasthoff and Bostridge can stand with them in their own ways. There was nothing fussy or pedantic about what occurred in Symphony Hall today. The children's chorus and the incredible John Oliver chorus were an intrinsic part of the whole. Hyperbole can be dangerous so I'll stop.
I don't know how the 'critics' will see it. But then the critics are to point hallmarks and help educate us ... not direct us.
Maria Iantosca
The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Hall go back with Britten's WAR REQUIEM a long while. The American premiere happened here and many performances since have graced the Hall and the Tanglewood Festival. In 1986, the young Carol Vanness and Thomas Moser sang well but the veteran Benjamin Luxon set a standard which, for me, remains the performance of performances in the baritone music. Unsettled in many parts of the repertory, Seiji Ozawa knew exactly how the piece should go and the presence in the audience of the U.S. Secretary of Defense created quite a stir.
On another occasion, Symphony Hall hosted an independent production with excellent Boston-based soloists and a local orchestra, performing the work with deep sincerity and no little accomplishment (Marcus Haddock has since gone on to an international career). The evening was blessed--literally and figuratively--by the aged and frail Peter Pears, his voice like the rustle of dried leaves, telling the audience about "Ben" and why the work was so very important to him. As he walked in halting triumph off the stage there was an extended ovation. So, the current run of four concerts enters a rich tradition, and manages to honor--even amplify--them all.
It is necessary first to speak of the unearthly tonal and dynamic control of the chorus under John Oliver's direction. It can whisper yet be producing a fully supported tone, it can roar and yet be crystal clear. Their first entrance in the Mahler 2nd Symphony is always the cause of goose bumps and the WAR REQUIEM requires--and gets from them--such virtuosity on a minute by minute basis. No less impressive was the PALS Children's Chorus but I wished for a better placement in either the upper regions of the Hall or just off stage to let them be heard to better advantage.
The work's structure calls for frequent shifts of focus from the full forces of the Latin funeral mass to the chamber intimacy of Wilfred Owen's deeply personal poetry which compliments, comments upon and often countradicts the "establishment" view of going to glory and immortality. (An extra layer of meaning is that this overtly pacifist work was commissioned for the dedication of a Cathedral named for St. Michael the Archangel, a fully caparisoned military sub-diety whose cult flourished just as Christianity was locked in mortal combat with invaders from the East). Britten manages these transitions with great skill and Ozawa and the Boston Symphony were in resplendent form last night, managing an emotional connection to the music without ever sentimentalizing it. The brass in particular were in tremendous form.
Christine Goerke, at the rear of the stage in the midst of the chorus, soared easily and with no strain of any kind through music filled with tough intervals and high tessitura. Even if without the Slavic edge that Galina Vishnevskaya brought to this part, most sopranos have emerged with a kind of stridency and strain no matter how good they are. My friend Jim Bodge once speculated that the stridency might actually be "written into" the music, an effect that Britten sought from his female soloist. Should that be the case, Ms. Goerke failed; the vocal writing held no terrors for her and her rich, dark soprano rang true from one end of the work to the other. She shaped the phrases in large, confident gestures and never tired. (Backstage, after the concert, she greeted friends warmly and, typically, deflected praise from herself to "the boys," the chorus and the orchestra).
"The boys," of course were Thomas Quasthoff and Ian Bostridge cast in fulfillment of Britten's desire for a German and an English singer for these parts. Quasthoff, who read through the entire score as it was being played and seemed physically possessed by it, sang eloquently and made much of the great final poem which brings the work to its conclusion. Perhaps even more remarkable was tenor Bostridge's performance. The voice shows no sign of effort at all in its production and he attacks tone like a virtuoso clarinetist, without any defineable beginning or end, merely a finely graded crescendo or diminuendo from silence to any dynamic level he wants. With complete flexibility, he was able to respond to words and color them on an individual basis without ever losing the legato line. A bit reticent at first, he soon got away from the score and fully inhabited the material, always the classic English tenor in sound but also absolutley his own man in the shaping of phrases and interpretation. As for Sieji Ozawa, the flamboyant style of earlier days has focused to a precise and communicative relationship with all the performers--attentive but in charge, totally in the service of the piece.
When it was over, after the final choral utterance made time stand still and the unearthly final "n" of Amen feathered down into infinity, there was an extended silence and finally an ovation--extended, emotional and genuine.
Bill Fregosi