13th March
What a change it has made to our musical lives now that we can have an orchestra when appropriate, for our concerts! The Bach Passions simply wouldn’t work properly without one.
Before discussing the singing team in a return to the St John Passion it’s worth mentioning Ensemble Passio which works for James on these occasions. Like most Baroque groups it changes like colours in a kaleidoscope, depending on who’s around and what’s needed. Sometimes we have tympani, sometimes we have trumpets, and sometimes, as in this performance, we had the beautiful sound of the viola da gamba, played by Richard Tunnicliffe. The continuo is very important in these works – it underpins the singers and gives them direction in the recitatives, and sometimes in more lyrical passages too. A harpsichord is often a key feature, but this time we did not have one. And it is not easy to do – you have to learn how. David Moore provided body to the music with a chamber organ instead – its grave sound was very appropriate.
We had some new faces and changes in the singing team. Tenor James Robinson (yes we had 2 Robinsons!) who often deps for us, came in to do Petrus, and added a sweet-toned tenor to his aria. Martin Oxenham didn’t sing this time and Stephen Kennedy was a dark-voiced Christus, which worked well. Nicholas Mogg was on tour in Europe with Sir John Eliot Gardiner as a soloist in the “St Matthew”, and Tim Dickinson, who we heard in the “Messiah” returned to give us a strong Pilate. We also had a new soprano voice in American Christine Buras, and her bright tone was just right for the lovely “Ich folge” she sang.
Once again, it was chorus – who needs chorus? I counted them out and I counted them in, and with singers like Rachel Ambrose Evans, Aidan Coburn, Kathy Nicholson and Robin Tyson, we were very well provided for. You could look forward to each of them singing an aria, and in fact, the alto arias were shared between Kathy and Robin, which gave us a chance to see how the different sounds work.
Paul Robinson was roundly cheered for his work as the Evangelist at the end. I wished we’d had the German words on one side and the English on the other so you could follow whichever was the most familiar, but Paul, who is one of nature’s storytellers, made sure everyone knew what was going on.
The John Passion tells the story at length but not in any way that is too long. You feel “It is finished” is true, though the story carries on a little further.
If this reviewer is rather brief I apologise. I had had a very cultural week with two operas. The RAM performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s “May Night” exactly like any opera company – except that all the singers were under 30. The sight of the gentlemen of the vocal faculty doing Cossack dancing (and they’d all grown beards to order) was not to be forgotten. A Youth Opera production of “The Magic Flute” elsewhere – and I have views about teenagers singing Mozart – was equally unforgettable, when Tamino, striding off to find his love, clipped one of the Egyptian pillars and it fell from the stage and the top broke off. It was in a church with a stone floor, but the Vicar assured us it would be mended next day………
St John Passion
Suzanne Pinkerton