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Sundry Passions London
St John's, Smith Square
04/21/2000 -
Johann Sebastian Bach: St John Passion
Ian Bostridge (Evangelist), Stephan Loges (Jesus), Thomas Guthrie
(Pilate), Emma Kirkby (soprano), Catherine Wyn-Rogers (alto), James
Gilchrist (tenor), Colin Campbell (bass)
Polyphony, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Stephen Layton (conductor) Polyphony's Bach Passion at St John's is a Good Friday fixture that has
nothing to do with football. But it has as much as many church services to
do with a spiritual engagement with suffering and rebirth. This year's
performers were almost impeccable, and Stephen Layton's direction produced
musical results that were often far more dramatic than in Deborah Warner's
staged production at the ENO.
The action of the St John Passion often seems not quite coherent, but in
this peformance it found points of intense focus that made an engaging
emotional progression. The self-pity of Peter's weeping, narrated by the
Evangelist, revealed an inadequacy in the opening arias, which make facile
claims of grief and loyalty. Pilate's release of Barabbas and his torture
of Jesus was a swift transition from the violence of a chorus through the
Evangelist's dislocated narration and a strange, almost expressionist
instrumental introduction to an arioso and aria that recovered a redemptive
meaning from the cruelty. And Jesus's redemptive acceptance of his
suffering at the moment of his death was an amazing collaboration between
Evangelist, Christus and aria.
Catherine Wyn-Rogers was much more focussed and coherent in the alto arias
than she was at the first ENO performance. Perhaps the more familar German
text helps, and the smaller space of St John's. Ian Bostridge's Evangelist
was forceful, not remotely clerical or sentimental, and fully focussed on
the meaning of the narrative. His voice is still beautiful, and seems to be
getting bigger. James Gilchrist was also stirring in the tenor arias.
Stephan Loges, only just out of Guildhall, was a striking presence as
Jesus. This role, based strictly on the words in the gospel text which has
a completely different narrative method, is shapeless, and there is not
enough of it for the singer to build up a dramatic presence as the
Evangelist can. This Jesus, though, was unquestionably the purpose of the
Evangelist's narrative. Familiarity leads us to hear Jesus' words "Es ist
vollbracht" as the lead-in to the alto aria that follows, but Loges made
them sound like the end of everything. The apparent seamlessness and
serenity of his delivery made a powerful contrast with Bostridge's
rhetorical Evangelist. Loges is a baritone, and his lower range doesn't
quite have the force you expect in a Christus, but his singing has more
than enough authority to make up for it.
The Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment was in superb form, as was
Polyphony, delivering violence of terrifying focus in the crowd choruses.
On the following day, another viewing of Deborah Warner's ENO production of
the St John Passion didn't quite clear up what it was about, or for. Left
to his own devices, Layton had found plenty in the music. Warner's efforts
to externalize the meaning somehow diffused it, quite apart from the lack
of clarity caused by the unecclesiastical conditions in the Coliseum. Mark
Padmore's Evangelist still held everything together with searing emotion.
Catherine Wyn-Rogers' arias worked better. Paul Whelan's Jesus was
expressive, but just a little too redolent of Godspell in appearance. The
real problem, in contrast to the Polyphony performance, was the
generalization of emotion and the lack of distinction between the styles of
the crowd choruses and monumental choruses, and between narrative, speech
and commentary generally. Still, the audience seemed to find it worthwhile
and moving, and you have to admire the ENO for trying something so
difficult.
H.E. Elsom
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