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Inner voices
The Cantata Singers’ Verdi Requiem; Manfred Honeck at the BSO; Deborah Voigt
BY LLOYD SCHWARTZ

It’s not hard to do a great performance of the Verdi Requiem. All you need are four soloists with large beautiful voices and expressive fervor, a powerful and accurate chorus, an orchestra that can play with both size and nuance, and a sensitive, intelligent, passionate conductor who can convey emotional range and urgency without losing the clarity of the musical line or the rhythmic continuity of the whole.

Last week, David Hoose and the Cantata Singers showed how it’s done. In his eloquent program note, Hoose wrote about the anomalous nature of Verdi’s stupendous work: how it’s not a Requiem by a believer; how even on this vast scale, Verdi is expressing a private, individual response to a devastating personal loss — he wrote it after the death of the celebrated novelist Alessandro Manzoni, author of the great historical novel I promessi sposi. That was exactly how the performance felt. Not just the soloists but each individual member of the chorus seemed to be expressing his or her most intimate fear of dying, terror of judgment, wish for eternal peace, lament for the death of a loved one, or desire for release from earthly suffering.

Hoose achieved this partly by not rushing, by keeping the finest threads of orchestral texture audible even during the loudest choral outbursts. And by not cancelling out Verdi’s grand climaxes. The first explosion of the Dies irae, bass drum pounding away, was terrifying, as was the sudden mysterious diminuendo into hushed tremors of fear; but this was less terrifying than the earthshaking cataclysm near the very end. The orchestra also played with extraordinary warmth and tenderness, pouring out its own sympathy for the suffering soloists: Peggy Pearson’s poignant rising oboe punctuating the tenor’s guilty outcry in the Ingemisco; the tremulous violins surrounding the alto with a shimmering halo of light in the Lux æterna. The Offertorio, a prayer to free the departed spirits from the pains of Hell, became a sweet, lilting song. Yet nothing was held back either, as in the pairs of antiphonal trumpets on either side of the balcony in the Tuba mirum announcing the Day of Judgment.

Hoose gathered a more impressive and well-matched quartet of vocal soloists than the BSO did for the Verdi Requiem that opened its 2002 season. These were "local" singers with international voices. Bass Robert Honeysucker was in resonant, velvet voice for his prayers of supplication in the Rex tremenda and Confutatis maledictis, yet he sounded "stunned" into stupefied silences in the Mors stupebit. Tenor Yeghishe at his best sounds like Jussi Bjoerling, and here he sang with dignity, controlled passion, and, especially in the Ingemisco, heartfelt intensity. Intelligence rather than powerhouse vocalism got mezzo-soprano Janna Baty through the demanding Liber scriptus, but she was heartbreaking in the more inward lullaby of the Lacrymosa and the prayer in unaccompanied duet with Barbara Quintiliani in the Agnus Dei. This young Boston soprano has the ideal Verdi voice (golden) and temperament (impassioned). And it seems to be getting even more beautiful as it’s expanding. The most treacherous note in the Requiem is the dizzying ascent to a high pianissimo on the last syllable of the word "Requiem" near the very end. Here the BSO’s star soprano, Barbara Frittoli, was more secure, and Quintiliani was landing on most of her high notes under proper pitch. I’d still rather hear openhearted Quintiliani, even with problems, than Frittoli’s chilly accuracy.

Hoose and the Cantata Singers have done practically every major choral work before. This was their first Verdi Requiem. It ought to become one of their staples.

The BSO this week introduced a new conductor, Manfred Honeck, the Austrian-born director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, who brought us the late Alfred Schnittke’s 1991 Concerto Grosso No. 5. The presence of Latvian violin virtuoso Gidon Kremer (plus Beethoven and Tchaikovsky on the rest of the program) guaranteed a full house. Schnittke’s four movements evidently depict the four seasons, though only the eerie iciness of the last-movement Lento suggested anything seasonal. Each movement begins with a long violin cadenza, and Kremer’s playing of these complex solos was enthralling. Each movement ends with sudden clangor (scary!) from an off-stage amplified piano (Andrius Zlabys). At the very end, the violin grows thinner and higher, an icicle piercing the brain, finally dissolving far above the ominous reverberations of the piano. I’m not sure what it all adds up to, but I’m eager to hear it again.

Honeck is a very "physical" conductor — he lunges at the orchestra at every climax. This worked for his vigorous and (even rarer) rhythmically precise Beethoven Coriolan Overture, but the Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony sounded crass and externalized. He led it without a score, but perhaps using one might have reminded him of dynamic (and, hence, emotional) nuances, breathing spaces, places where the orchestra should sing.

During one of Deborah Voigt’s encores in her Bank of America Celebrity Series concert, I think I figured out something about my frustration with her. In spite of her gleaming voice and earthy personality, she rarely engages me. I’ve always found something a little bland and generic about her singing.

That encore was Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein’s "Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man," from Show Boat, for which Voigt had the perfectly balanced operetta style — beautifully full but not overripe. "Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,/I got to love one man till I die" — the point is that just like the fish and the birds, the singer has no choice. But Voigt sang, "I’m gonna love one man till I die" — an expression of will, not helplessness. Then instead of lamenting, "When he goes away,/That’s a rainy day," she sang, "That’s a happy day"! She got the line right when she repeated it later, but instead of following "That’s a rainy day" with "But when he comes back, the day is fine,/The sun will shine," she sang, "And when he comes back." It’s a small change, but it missed the essential contradiction in the song. The singer knows she’s behaving irrationally, but she "can’t help" herself — this bad relationship is still what she wants.

All evening, Voigt had been plagued by memory lapses, and she had to lean over to get the right words from Brian Zeger, her alert accompanist. She even used a music stand during the first half of her program — rather a breach of recital etiquette (except for complicated pieces of new music). At these prices, why wasn’t she better prepared? Of course, anyone can forget words. I’ve heard famous Shakespearean actors rewrite Shakespeare. The real problem with Voigt is that her substitutions suggested that she didn’t understand what she was singing about, and that’s not a question of memory.

In the first half, of the songs by Amy Beach (settings of Robert Browning), Richard Strauss, and Tchaikovsky, only in the quiet understatement of Tchaikovsky’s "Was I Not a Little Blade of Grass" did she touch the heart. American songs — by Ives, Ben Moore (four not-yet-published settings of James Joyce, the young Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Herrick’s "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" — "You’ll notice there’s no ring on my left hand," Voigt joked), William Bolcom (an eloquent setting of H.D. and two of his cheesy Cabaret Songs), and Stephen Sondheim — alternated nostalgia, introspection (a touchingly straightforward "Losing My Mind"), and randy humor. One of the encores was Moore’s "Wagner Roles," a send-up of Voigt herself, including a reference to the notorious "little black dress" that cost her a gig at Covent Garden because she was too big to fit into it. (No longer the case since her much-publicized stapled-stomach weight loss.)

Symphony Hall may have been far from sold out, but Voigt won cheers from her fans and clearly made some new ones. Yet for most of the concert, at least for me, something more essential than a handful of words was missing.


Issue Date: November 18 - 24, 2005
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