Last night in Davies Symphony Hall, the San Francisco Choral Society (SFCS) continued its first post-COVID season with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem). The music was scored for a large orchestra, double choir, and four soloists: soprano (Clarissa Lyons), mezzo (Buffy Baggott), tenor (Christopher Bengochea), and bass (Philip Skinner, replacing Eugene Brancoveanu at the last minute). It is worth revisiting the photograph included in last month’s preview article to get some sense of the magnitude of the choral resources and the orchestra:
SFCS performing with a full orchestra in Davies Symphony Hall (photograph by Kristen Loken)
The reader can see that the choral resources occupied both the stage and the Terrace area behind the stage. The only differences from last night are that, in the photograph, there are no soloists at the center of the stage and there were no risers for the orchestra. That last “feature” was a significant one. Elevation is not only for the benefit of sight; it also facilitates audibility. More often than not, Verdi’s score makes a mighty noise; yet, because they were “blocked” by musicians sitting in front of them, there were any number of fortissimo moments when the brass players were barely audible. Bryan Baker, last night’s conductor, had major difficulties in establishing instrumental balance; but, to be fair, his primary focus of attention was on the chorus.
There was, however, one instrument that consistently made its presence known. Because of the “fatal” role it plays in the setting of the “Dies irae” (day of wrath) text, bass drummer Tim Dent was situated near the front of the stage off to the right. He gave Verdi all of the thunderous impact that his part specified, but I have to confess that I had a very hard time holding back the giggles. This may have been the high point of Verdi’s operatic approach to the drama behind the sacred text, but his gesture risked coming across as a joke told too many times. A similar situation arises during the “Libera me,” when a pair of playful bassoons seemed to have wandered into the wrong libretto prior to the “Tremens factus sum ego” (I am made to tremble) text.
Fortunately, the performance by the choral resources saved the day. They brought clarity of diction to every text setting, and Baker commanded a meticulous sense of balancing all the different vocal ranges. Sadly, that command did not always extend to the soloists. Skinner rose above the other three with rich vocal qualities and physical comportment that consistently highlighted the semantics behind the Latin words he was singing. Lyons and Baggott, on the other hand, were most engaging when their voices intertwined in duo work. Bengochea was true to the marks on the pages of his score, but his delivery tended to be a bit detached from the underlying semantics.
Mind you, between religious services and sacred music compositions, one does not have to worry very much about the semantics of the Requiem text. More critical is the question of whether this was a religious ritual disguised as opera or the other way around. When this music was first performed, three of the soloists had contributed to the European premiere of Verdi’s Aida: soprano Teresa Stolz (Aida), mezzo Maria Waldmann (Amneris), and bass Ormondo Maini (Ramfis). In that context it is worth noting that all four of last night’s vocal soloists did their best to establish a sense of religious ritual, even when the composer’s music ventured into operatic rhetoric.
Nevertheless, there are any number of passages that sound as if Verdi was hanging his notes on Latin syllables with little regard to words, phrases, and the other building blocks of semantics. One might almost say that he never seriously realized that a funeral mass was not an occasion for narrative. All that mattered was that he had words; and, through his operatic experience, he had a knapsack chock-full of techniques for setting those words. Does this make for a satisfying concert experience? The answer to that question resides entirely in the dispositions of the listener!
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