Mendelssohn, Elijah : Rebecca Evans (soprano), Leah-Marian Jones (mezzo), Rhys Meirion (tenor), Bryn Terfel (bass), William Dutton (boy soprano), Philharmonia Chorus, Cardiff Ardwyn Singers, Cardiff Polyphonic Choir, Orchestra of Welsh National Opera / Owain Arwel Hughes OBE (conductor), St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, 19.7.2008 (GPu)


I could make this a very short review. I believe that Elijah is a very considerable work indeed (let’s say it – a masterpiece); this was, in almost all respects, an impressive performance of it, and I joined every other member of the audience in a lengthy standing ovation at its close. Tempted as I am to leave it at that, I shan’t  - if only out of fear of my worthy editor’s wrath. [??, Ed] The temptation is there, however, because it was one of those occasions when, though the performance had its minor areas of relative weakness, the experience was so all-encompassing that talking or writing about it afterwards seems unlikely to be anything other than a kind of verbalising impoverishment. It was an occasion when cast and audience seemed swept along in a particular intensity of feeling that was, it is probably fair to say, as much religious as aesthetic. In a way I have rarely experienced, the religious and moral meaning of music and text really seemed to come alive.

When Elijah was premiered in Birmingham Town Hall, on the morning of 26^th August 1846, it was sung by a chorus of 271 voices and played by an orchestra some 125 strong. Forces here were a little less extravagant than that, but the monumentality (and the occasional intimacy) of Mendelssohn’s great work was very much in evidence in this performance. The chorus – made up of three choirs, the Philharmonia Chorus being joined by two Welsh choirs, The Cardiff Ardwyn Singers and the Cardiff Polyphonic Choir – were quite outstanding. If I have understood the programme notes correctly, the three choirs were prepared by, respectively,  Edward Caswell, David Leggett and Neil Ferris. I hope I have the names correct – because all three Music Directors deserve the highest praise. The combined chorus produced some beautiful and varied singing – whether in, say, the utter assurance and serenity of ‘Blessed are the men who fear him”, the impotent fury of ‘Baal, we cry unto thee’ or the ringing hymn of praise, ‘And then shall your light’, which closes Part Two. Everywhere they sang not only with striking musicality but with both a sensitivity to text and a convincing sense that the sentiments mattered (a dimension in which many a famous choir can be lacking when it comes to sacred works).

Mendelssohn, in the early stages of thinking about Elijah, almost ten years before the premiere (itself only some fifteen months before the composer’s death – months in which he continued to work on the score) declared that he “imagined Elijah as a real prophet … strong, zealous and, yes, even bad-tempered, angry and brooding”. In Bryn Terfel we had a very authoritative Elijah; there aren’t too many singers who could bring such vocal command to the role, the voice itself seeming to guarantee the character’s prophetic powers. As a piece of vocal characterisation it was remarkable. And, yes, there were many of the qualities Mendelssohn imagined in his Elijah – a sense of brooding menace, of fanaticism, of both a scorn and (occasionally) a sympathy for human frailty which somehow seemed not merely human. Terfel has, of course, made a recording of this work – conducted by Paul Daniels, some ten years ago, on Decca – which is one of the finest recorded versions. Terfel’s singing of the opening pre-overture words of the oratorio (“As God the Lord of Israel liveth, before whom I stand: there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word”) was powerfully spine-chilling and in his (naturally successful) challenge to the Priests of Baal, Terfel was a voice of irresistible authority, capturing Elijah’s nearness to spiritual arrogance. His affirmation at the close of that ‘battle’ for power – “Is not his word like a fire” – was a superb piece of musical declamation. If there were the slightest hints of imperfection, they came in some of the tenderer passages. In ‘It is enough’, Terfel’s experience in Bach and Handel fitted him well to handle the sarabande rhythms that underlie this poignant aria, and the whole was very moving. But, just occasionally, there were the slightest moments of ambiguity and uncertainty in the sotto voce passages. But such a quibble aside, this was a towering performance, richly vivid and, though quite without histrionic action, as convincing a piece of characterisation as one might hope to encounter on the operatic stage.

Amongst Terfel’s fellow soloists Rebecca Evans sang to the very high standards one has now come to expect from her. There is an intelligence in her singing which makes her far more than just the possessor of a fine voice and ensures both an exact judgement of scale and idiom and an astute responsiveness to details of text. Way back in the eleventh century Guido of Arezzo wrote that there was a vast distance between musicians and singers: “the latter perform; the former know what music comprises”.  Rebecca Evans is very much a musician. Her performance of the opening aria of Part Two (“Hear ye Israel”) was especially beautiful, sung with bell-like clarity and full of lovely sustained notes, but also gripping in its unfolding of the text’s argument. Rhys Meirion’s lyrical tenor brought a silvery grace to his work throughout, and an operatic phrasing by no means inappropriate here. ‘O Man of God’ was particularly striking, eloquently persuasive in a fashion both dignified and warm. Leah-Marian Jones, who had stepped in to replace an indisposed Sara Fulgoni, completed an all-Welsh team of soloists. At times her vibrato was a little on the intrusive side and occasionally one felt a certain lack of nuance; but she did considerable justice to the ravishing beauty of ‘Woe unto them’. The performance stepped outside Wales for its accomplished boy soprano, William Dutton being a Chorister at St. Mark’s Church in Harrogate (though his biographical note did tell us that his mother was born in Cardiff and, as a student, sang in the Cardiff Polyphonic Choir!).

Throughout the evening the balance of vocal and instrumental forces was immaculate; soloists were always audible in ways that don’t always characterise performances of nineteenth century oratorio. Rhythms never seemed over-emphatic or excessively hasty, but were always alert, balancing energy and dignity, capable of repose and stillness when required. For this, and much else, Owain Arwel Hughes deserves considerable praise. From orchestra, chorus and soloists he elicited a performance both disciplined and committed.  Above all, he led a performance of real intensity and spirituality.

Any further reservations? A few small cuts (particularly towards the end of Part Two) did slightly unbalance the pretty subtle design of the work. More trivially, is it really necessary for a concert such as this to have fancy lighting (gesturing, I imagine to the “fire” that is so important a feature of the libretto)? Do we really need an image of a strawberry projected on to the back wall behind the chorus (just in case we had forgotten that this was a summer festival of music)? The time will soon be upon us when we shall have to credit the Lighting Director for concerts as we do for operas.

But such matters paled into insignificance in the face of a moving and powerful performance of this remarkable composition.

Glyn Pursglove

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