Time for Messiah to make a comeback
BY ARTHUR KAPTAINIS, THE GAZETTE December 13, 2008
News travels fast. Except in the music world, where it travels slowly. "Is Nagano doing Messiah this year?" a fellow scribbler asked me this week in the m??tro.
Well, no. The MSO music director axed the yearly presentations of Handel's oratorio at Notre Dame Basilica on his arrival as music director in 2006. In that year, we had Christmas concerts with Ren??e Fleming (Place des Arts) and Karina Gauvin (Basilica), followed last December by the first half of Bach's Christmas Oratorio (PdA) and the Christmas singalong (Basilica).
Last Wednesday, it was Gauvin in PdA, with Jean-Fran??ois Rivest on the podium, melding Messiah selections with Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and A Charlie Brown Christmas. The MSO resident conductor takes his baton to the Basilica on Tuesday and Wednesday for a sing-along with Concerto Della Donna and the Choeur des enfants de Montr??al, two ensembles created by former MSO chorus director Iwan Edwards.
So it cannot be said that our flagship musical organization ignores the season. Not that they are giving those concerts away as presents. Prices for the sing-along top out at $78 - quite a sum to hear yourself sing. The high last Wednesday for Gauvin in Place des Arts was $104. Permit me to observe that a prime floor seat in Carnegie Hall this Tuesday for Deborah Voigt and the Orchestra of St. Luke's runs you $78, albeit in U.S. dollars.
But I have strayed from my main point, which is that I am starting to miss Messiah. The feeling is tinged with regret at the fact that I contrived to be absent in 2005 for what no one knew would be the exit MSO performance.
Of course, one reason for no-showing the ritual was my crankiness in 2004 over what struck me as a lacklustre outing. "Certain members of the orchestra might want to consider making a New Year's resolution," I wrote regarding the intonation lapses.
The Grand Choeur de Montreal and the Choeur Melodium under Martin Dagenais attempted to keep the tradition alive by mounting Messiah in the Basilica in 2006, but this turned out to be a one-off. It takes more than the subscriber roll of the Grand Choeur to fill the Basilica.
Of course, the McGill Chamber Orchestra under Boris Brott has made an annual tradition of delivering the oratorio to you in November, before you need it. No Messiah presented prior to the beginning of Advent counts. Why? Because I say so.
Christ Church Cathedral (the annual setting for the preemie Brott Messiah) also mounts a singalong of Part I every year. Present yourself today at 5. Freewill offering. The score is provided. Kindly sing along with the choruses only. Lindsay Michael, Jennifer Cohen, Michel Leonard and Phillipe Martel are taking the solos, under the direction of Patrick Wedd.
Again I digress. Montreal needs a big-time Messiah in Notre Dame Basilica. If the MSO is not interested in restoring the tradition, might I nominate a certain Yannick N??zet-S??guin to take up the challenge with his Orchestre M??tropolitain?
The dyed-in-the-wool Montrealer is sure to be home for the holidays in perpetuity and his name would function as a magnet for top soloists, as it did on Nov. 3 for a performance of what was once the world's second-most-popular English oratoiro, Mendelssohn's Elijah. ...Continue
