By Douglas Neslund
Ten years ago, Maestro
Grant Gershon and the peerless Los Angeles Master Chorale brought Chinese-born
Tan Dun’s “Water Passion after St. Matthew” to Walt Disney Concert Hall. For a
first reading, the near-operatic work electrified the audience (if water and
electricity may safely be used in the same sentence). So when Water Passion was
scheduled for reprise in the current season, a buzz developed around the
weekend performances. As well it should have.
Carefully rehearsed over
the past few weeks, the performance on Sunday was meticulously presented, with
vocal soloists soprano-in-excelsis Delaram Kamareh and basso
profundo-in-extremis Stephen Bryant dazzling in challenging roles that preclude
nearly all potential soloists, given their respective tessituras alone. Stupendously
high notes and long leaps not heard since Yma Sumac were the challenge, with Ms.
Kamareh’s hands and arms dancing and text-shaping along. Mr. Bryant was asked
to perform frequent Tibetan overtone throat and fry sounds, to one member of
the audience a bit too frequently, especially at odd moments in the English
text thankfully projected above the performers. His vocal production was
prodigious and beautiful.
Also soloing to great
effect were percussionists David Cossin, Theresa Dimond, John Wakefield and
instrumentalists Shalini Vijayan (violin), Cécilia Tsan ('cello) and almost hidden
behind the men’s chorus, Yuanlin Chen on the digital sampler.
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| Composer Tan Dun |
Seventeen translucent
bowls of water formed a cross on stage, and contained microphones to pick up
the various hand slaps, what appeared to be tin cans bobbed on the water
surface, and other sometimes bowed odd objects that created sound through the
water. Each bowl was lit from below, with a color scheme to reflect various
moods arising from the Passion story.
Throughout the work, Mr.
Cossin, Ms. Dimond and Mr. Wakefield played in this watery world and were
surrounded by kettle and bass drums, with Ms. Dimond having a set of chimes to
play as well. Almost in traditional jazz format, Mr. Cossin was given a solo
turn at one point, with astonishing adeptness with his bare hands, playing and
perhaps inventing new rhythms along the way on what appeared to be miked
gourds.
Regular patrons of Master
Chorale performances have come to expect vocal perfection, and on this
occasion, were richly rewarded with not only singing par excellence but also rock
rubbing and banging, Tibetan bell tinkling, and during the brief
thunder-and-lightning at the death of Jesus, realistic metallic thunder claps.
The absolute key to this
enchanting evening was careful preparation. It was clear to those who witnessed
the two decade-separated Passion performances that Maestro Gershon’s richly
gifted subconscious right brain had been working through the many opportunities
to bring light and maintain the translucence of the work, and devise a
rehearsal plan accordingly. This was not a run-through, but a carefully
thought-out process made public to a delighted audience, that rewarded all with
an instant standing ovation, with protracted loud applause punctuated with
“bravos” and shrieks one normally hears at a rock concert, demanding a five-bow
after the tributary long silence that brought the work to a close, even after
the stage lights came up. No one was even breathing. And no one noticed how
quickly the 90-minute work sans intermission went.
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| Maestro Gershon |
Master Chorale audiences
of the future will be fortunate if composer Tan Dun’s Water Passion is once
again scheduled in water-needy Los Angeles, and Maestro Gershon is still at
the podium.
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Photos courtesy of myuctv.tv and Jamie Phan
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