Above : Graham Abbott conducts Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ Handel’s Messiah. Pic Keith Saunders
The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued the seemingly commonsense idea about the difference between recorded and live musical performance. Live music is never the same one performance to the next. A new style of review could attend more than one performance of a program or play in season and note differences – however impractical such a practice might be. The MESSIAH is one musical program that invites Merleau-Ponty’s advice. Since Christmas performances began at the foundling hospital in London May 1750, it has become such a public popular institution that an aficionado could well comment past performances when attending one recently seen.
I will not pretend to be so advanced in music going, and can only respond to the magnificence of the most recent staging at the Sydney Opera House by the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. I will note just how satisfying and intense this particular experience was. It was the sheer scale of hundreds of trained singers, combined with the Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra and four soloists, that overwhelmed in its rendition of the assertive power and surprising shifts of style of Handel’s Christian masterpiece. With the Messiah we all go to church – it is a ritual and the audience always devotedly stands for the Hallelujah chorus in the modern gothic sweep of the sydney concert hall. From its start the Messiah brilliantly located religious performance outside the church – Handel needed income and there were potential issues with ecclesiastical sensitivity- in a manner that could be shared by all audiences of whatever dogmatic persuasion (or lack thereof). This performance, at the Sydney Opera House, must be a penultimate one in its long history of Christmas events.
This program was a real showcase of the acoustic refurbishment of the Concert Hall. The sound libretto of biblical verses, first selected by Charles Jennens, was clearly heard. Handel’s work is highly entertaining – it has many segments, each relating to a biblical passage, and each comprising a different arrangement of orchestra, soloist and choir. The work does not so much develop or narrate in a linear sequence as punch out its multi layered christian themes – of prophecy, birth, life, death, redemption and eternal life – in one flourish after another. Handel maintained such control of alternating segments and their meaning – each is surprising in style and content. Sometimes truths are whispered – like the opening “Comfort ye – Ev’ry valley” by Louis Hurley (Tenor) – or “I know that my Redeemer liveth” with Penelope Mills (soprano). At other times, like “Why do the nations – Let us break their bonds” (Christopher Richardson and choir) the force of transcending vision would impress even the most hardened non believer. If only such proclamations of world peace and redemption could have effect. And when the choir does all stand – in a flourish dressed in black like a flock of dark birds of mystery – and sing there is such overwhelming energy to biblical proclamations. Artistic energy is the through line and testimony of belief – not dogma or narrative alone.
Through it all the conductor (Graham Abbott) testified to his lifetime immersion with Handel and particularly the Messiah. Graham brought a clean conducting style that coordinated hundreds of performers on stage – with crisp mastery of a complex score. Penelope Mills (soprano), Margaret Plummer (mezzo-soprano), Louise Hurley (tenor) and Christopher Richardson (bass baritone) received prolonged and deserved standing ovation, along with conductor (Graham Abbott) and the choirs’ musical director (Brett Weymark) – and of course the full choirs and orchestra. The two female soloists were magnificent. The audience was thrilled by the long generous and finely tuned performance of a work that really does set the stage for the Christmas season. This short season is booked out – do try to catch the event next year if it is similarly staged.
