PSO's compelling, challenging 'Messiah'
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Wrapped within the exquisite airs and stirring choruses of Handel's "Messiah" is a condemnation. Charles Jennens, who stitched together the biblical and devotional passages that comprise the retelling of the Christ story, had an ulterior motive: a religious rebuke, as it were, of 18th-century English society that was increasingly becoming rationalist.
Controversy is at the heart of this masterful oratorio that is often performed by rote today.
That's what made the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's daring staging of "Messiah" so compelling Friday night. It's not that the stand-and-sing affair was turned into an "opera" with set, costumes and acting for the Mendelssohn Choir and soloists. Stage director Sam Helfrich challenged the audience to experience the tension inherent in it.
It's likely the first such treatment by a major orchestra, and it put a chamber version of the PSO into a pit of sorts below the Heinz Hall stage. Conducted by music director Manfred Honeck, the orchestra offered a typical, though wonderfully crafted and executed performance. Above it was something entirely new, and at times harrowing.
PG VIDEOMr. Helfrich envisioned "Messiah" as a triptych that viewed America with the heady optimism of the 1950s, the divisive world of today, and finally the melting pot's fire at Ellis Island at the turn of the 19th century. Once I got over the bizarre nature of seeing action on stage that was more or less incongruous with the text, a powerful effect began to grab me. Mr. Helfrich's view of America as flawed in every decade disturbed. Against the backdrops, the biblical verses had the effect of exposing the ugliness of society that's often hidden: the separation of the sexes in the 1950s or the treatment of immigrants and the income gap of today. But in each part -- or act -- he let the ultimately uplifting and positive music and message come through in redemptive climaxes.
That's heady stuff for a performance of the season's hallmark, but the PSO should be commended for offering a different take and one that will surely stir its own controversy.
None of this would have worked had it not been for the marvelous singing of the Mendelssohn Choir in a situation many (although not all) were unused to. They radiated the necessary warmth of tone and lightness of line that becomes "Messiah" while acting out situational choreography by Peter Kope.
The soloists, accustomed to opera, were outstanding, with Laura Heimes' bright soprano voice matched by the darker tone of mezzo-soprano Lindsay Ammann, tenor William Ferguson as an actor with voice and body, and Philip Cutlip bellowing with hefty baritone.
In the only musical deviation of the night (outside of traditional cuts), a countertenor from the choir, Andrey Nemzer, surprised the audience by singing half of the soprano aria "He shall feed his flock."
Several children added greatly to the potency of the production, led by the unaffected acting of young Sabrina Knox as an innocent child of the '50s in the first act.
"Messiah" repeats 8 tonight and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
First Published December 3, 2011 12:00 am
