CalPerformances presents Apollo's Fire
2014-11-13
First Congregational Church
2345 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA
8:00 PM, Thursday, November 13, 2014
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Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643): Vespers for the Blessed Virgin (1610)
[7:50 PM, the band begins to take the stage. Tuning, practicing, and otherwise making a happy but chaotic noise.]
[8:05 PM lights down, brief announcements from Matías Tarnopolsky]
[9:13 PM lights down]
Wow, what an amazing, moving, powerful, uplifting experience! At the end I looked around and noticed more than one audience member crying with joy. Wow!
Forgive me for not beginning at the start, but I wanted to establish right up front that this show was one of the best I've seen all year; Apollo's Fire has now been inscribed as the latest entry on my “must see” list of performers.
After a few opening remarks from Matias Tarnopolsky (sp?), the show began with the sound of a processional drum from the church lobby as the majority of the group sat silently on stage. As the beat of the drum continued, about a dozen of the singers – the soloists? – marched slowly and solemnly up the aisle and took their places with the rest of the chorus. And so with that semi-staged theatrical flourish, the performance began!
As might be obvious from the setlist, the various motets were vehicles for spotlighting the talents of one or more soloists who embellished their singing roles by gesturing or walking or otherwise acting in a manner consonant with the lyrics of the song. While not as dramatic as a semi-staged work (such as a Handel oratorio), the acting seemed appropriate to conveying the meaning of the tunes without overstepping what boundaries might exist to differentiate this as a religious work rather than a secular one. Sitting up front, this kept me quite engaged!
Another thing that kept me engaged was trying to follow the singing (in Latin) via the tiny print in the program. Struggling at that task convinced me that it's probably time to get some half-readers (so I can make out the letters without squinting while still being able to look up and follow the action onstage). Sigh; the vicissitudes of age are slicing me with a thousand tiny cuts!
The task of following the progress of the piece was aided somewhat by the repetition of the minor doxology: Gloria patri et Filio… at the conclusion of each Psalm, with a final repetition at the conclusion of the Magnificat. Interestingly, Monteverdi seemed to me to have developed ever more complicated variations for that section, so that while each return was clearly recognizable, it was also grander and more ornate, finishing with the most amazing bit at the end, the emotional intensity of which is what I presume caught myself and many other audience members in a sort of shared auditory ecstasy. Way to go Claudio! And three cheers for Jeannette Sorrell at conjuring this performance from her merry band!
Look's like Amazon is offering a studio recording of this work from a few years ago (with different soloists) – and HDtracks has a 24-bit version available to download (albeit from another group) for even less. An embarrassment of riches! I think that one of those choices is going to be in my collection pretty darn soon!
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event!