Soloists:
Randy Bills
Andrew Brown
Jason Robert Brown
Aaron Cain
Brian d’Arcy James
Tonnocus McClain
Megan Mullally
Kevin St. Clair
Unfortunately this concert
falls into the "high hopes dashed"
category. The Los Angeles Master Chorale (formerly
the Roger Wagner Chorale) is one of the country’s
finest choral ensembles, and my listening
companion had just heard them a few days earlier
in an apparently stunning performance of Arvo
Pärt’s Te Deum, which would indeed
be a superb choice to take full advantage
of the Disney Hall acoustic. Tonight’s program
was somewhat lighter, designed to showcase
works of Stephen Sondheim next to that of
younger Broadway writers who have been influenced
by him – an enticing concept, with a well-chosen
slate of examples by Adam Guettel, Jason Robert
Brown, and Ricky Ian Gordon. The latter two
composers were present, and also played piano
during the evening. And then of course, there’s
the hall itself – justifiably lauded and also
ultra-friendly to the sound of a good chorus.
Last October, when the Chorale appeared in
sensational performances of Mahler’s Resurrection
Symphony, I thought, this is what musical
bliss is all about.
The concert opened most
promisingly, with the Overture from
Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. One
of the men in the back row stood up to begin
the scale practice that cleverly opens the
piece, and as each chorus member joined in,
he or she rose up in turn, until the final
chord was reached and the entire ensemble
was standing, in full voice – kudos for excellent
staging.
Megan Mullaley, star
of television’s Will & Grace, showed
her acute comic timing in You Must Meet
My Wife from A Little Night Music,
playfully jousting with Brian d’Arcy James,
also in robust form. Some may be surprised
to learn that she is quite the singer, with
a clear, pleasantly nasal voice – perhaps
one part Maureen McGovern, one part Bernadette
Peters – and excellent phrasing and general
musical instincts. She was especially moving
in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Souvenir, with
text by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Adam
Guettel’s Awaiting You from Myths
and Hymns. Guettel’s unusual Floyd
Collins is a melancholy but strangely
uplifting work, based on a true story of a
Kentucky farmer in 1925, who stumbles into
a cavern, becomes the focus of an intense
media blowup, and then dies while trapped
there – not your usual subject matter for
a genre steeped in sunlight and good cheer.
Its final song, "How Glory Goes,"
has been a showpiece for Audra McDonald, but
Mr. James gave it his own equally heartfelt
spin.
Mr. Gershon is a wonderful
conductor: alert, sensitive, and with a good
stick technique – not to mention excited by
the music he presents (a good thing) and eager
to help the audience understand and appreciate
as much of it as possible (also a good thing).
But he should not do spoken commentary, at
least at this point. Most of these numbers
simply do not need any context – that’s what
program notes are for. Instead we got halting
phrases punctuated by "um’s" and
"uh’s" that made me want to scream,
"Please, sir! If you will only
get some tips on public speaking you’ll be
just fine, but meanwhile, perhaps consider
engaging a celebrity or someone else – anyone
– to help out in these matters!" This
was positively painful, and some of the comments
seemed almost as long as the songs that followed.
But now we come to how
all of this was more-or-less sabotaged by
using amplification, which apparently does
not flourish well in Disney Hall. Aside from
another problem: balance – the orchestra often
drowned out the vocalists – most of the songs’
words, especially in faster numbers or those
using three or four singers, were blurred
and smudged by the electronics. Yes, pop singers
are used to performing with microphones, but
I doubt that any miking would be necessary
in the live space of Disney. The hall is an
acoustic marvel, but it is also a somewhat
delicate instrument that does not seem to
respond well to ultra-loud sounds bouncing
brassily around inside it from electronic
speakers. Mr. Gehry has not designed the space
to be another Madison Square Garden; rather,
it is a space that cooperates with acoustic
instruments and voices, and in an extraordinary
way. You know something is wrong when a large
group of unamplified individuals – the choir
– sounds better than single performers who
are amplified. Mr. Gordon’s interesting-sounding
Balbec by the Sea sadly emerged as
a complete mess, lyrically speaking. Those
with whom I spoke after got the words "by
the sea" but little more than that. I
understood even less of the text in the (again)
well-chosen and moving Funeral Scene
from Mr. Brown’s Parade. This dark
vehicle is another in Sondheim’s tradition
of employing the Broadway stage for sober
material: the show is about the aftermath
of a lynching – and probably a good subject
to make sure all the words come across properly.
The most interesting part of this number was
the writing for the chorus, in traditional
American sacred harp style, sometimes
referred to as shape-note singing. Its simple,
but ear-catching mode is designed to be performable
by amateurs, with an immediate, homespun appeal.
Sadly, the abundant lyrics were swept aside.
The program closed with
the finale from Sweeney Todd, with
Brian d’Arcy James as a stern but mellifluous
Sweeney, and as the lights came up I couldn’t
help but think, this evening is not going
to turn anyone into a classical music lover,
a Broadway lover, or perhaps even a music
lover. A shame for a distinguished group such
as this one, and even more so since one look
at the Chorale’s 2004-2005 season shows further
imaginative programming on the horizon. It
is dispiriting to hear a great ensemble sabotaged
by so many miscalculations, ironically in
a venue that can now be considered one of
the finest in the world.
Bruce Hodges
Los
Angeles Master Chorale
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