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Mendelssohn, Elijah: Anna Leese, Elin Manahan Thomas (soprano), Wendy Dawn Thompson (mezzo), Andrew Kennedy (tenor), Neal Davies (bass), BBC National Chorus of Wales, Cardiff Ardwyn Singers, BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Thierry Fischer (conductor), St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, 1.3.2009 (GPu)


In the Guardian of Saturday 28^th February, 2009, this concert was listed as one of the ‘Picks of the Week’. It was unfortunate, though, that the best that could be said of it, apparently, was the following solitary sentence: “Mendelssohn’s bicentenary has made his faded oratorio fashionable again”. There seem to be three parts to this statement. The first, that 2009 sees the bicentenary of Mendelssohn’s birth is true enough; the last, the suggestion that it is only that fact that stirs any interest in Elijah is far from true. Elijah has never really fallen from popularity since its first performance in Birmingham in August 1846, even if in the years after the second World War Mendelssohn’s star waned somewhat. Though their frequency has varied over the years, I suspect that performances have never truly gone out of “fashion” in the years between 1846 and now. The central statement, the application of the epithet “faded” to the work is, as suggested above, untrue if it means “faded from sight”; it is even more completely untrue, I would suggest, if it is meant to suggest that the work itself is “faded”, like some painting that has been overexposed to sunlight and lost its colour, or, as is perhaps the suggestion here, has “faded” because the materials and attitudes involved in its initial production were inadequate and destined to ensure that the work wouldn’t last. Any good performance of Elijah – and this was a pretty decent one – will surely persuade the unprejudiced listener that the work, from being faded and colourless, retains a considerable power and retains the capacity to make a considerable impact. “Faded”, indeed, seems precisely the wrong word for Elijah, a work full of dramatic and religious intensity and of clear orchestral and vocal colours.

There have been staged presentations of Elijah as a “music-drama”. It will bear such treatment because it is conceived in terms of conflicts which, while they may be ideological (in the broadest sense), are always conceived of and presented in terms of individual human beings, human beings characterised both by the words of the German libretto (prepared by Mendelssohn and his old friend, Pastor Julius Schubring, and Englished by William Barthomew) and, above all, by Mendelssohn’s music. The Widow whose sick son is restored by Elijah, Queen Jezabel, Obadiah and King Ahab all have their own musical idiolects which distinguish them one from another – and, naturally enough, from the Angels. It is, of course, in Elijah that Mendelssohn successfully invests the greatest effort of characterisation; his is the character of greatest psychological complexity, his moods swinging from absolute Prophetic authority to a thoroughly human vulnerability and a vengeful fury. Even in a performance such as this, in which (following Mendelssohn’s score) several roles are ‘doubled’ (so that Anna Leese sang both the Widow and Angel, Andrew Kennedy both Obadiah and Ahab), the quasi-dramatic (or, more precisely, quasi-operatic) qualities of Mendelssohn’s musical characterisation are everywhere evident.

Neal Davies was not perhaps the most powerfully authoritative of Elijahs, his voice less obviously and irresistibly filled with prophetic power than that of, say, Bryn Terfel who, whether heard live or recorded, brings to the part a kind oracular conviction, a charismatic Voice-of-God quality that few others can equal. But, by way of considerable compensation, Davies sang with a fluent and thoughtful subtlety, with a convincing humanity which registered the cost of Elijah’s vision and experience in a way that was remarkably moving.  His interpretation of “It is enough” – in which the orchestral accompaniment was quite beautifully judged – was memorable and powerful, carrying absolute spiritual and psychological conviction. This is an aria which can sometimes be made too merely lovely, but the suppleness of Davies’s line served a real vision of what the words meant and articulated a tender vulnerability of character often overlooked in accounts of Elijah. There was a psychological and musical consistency in the very fact that in some of the more denunciatory and vengeful passages of the role Davies lacked (if only because his is not the heaviest of voices) the simple savagery of some interpreters. This was accomplished and intelligent singing of a high order, at the service of a plausible and persuasive piece of characterisation.

Soprano Anna Leese sang with passionate intensity as the Widow, both as a grieving mother and in the spiritual uplift, expressed with emotional directness quite free of sentimentality, which followed the restoration of her son. Leese’s singing was everywhere expressive and she made effective use of her large and gleaming voice. I wasn’t, however, entirely sure that hers was quite the voice one would, ideally, choose for some of the Angelic contributions, though they were sung with a thorough musicality. Leese’s fellow New Zealander, Wendy Dawn Thompson has, of course, been familiar to Welsh (and other) audiences since her appearance as a finalist in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2005. On this particular night there was a slight stiffness to some of her singing, as if she couldn’t quite let herself relax into some of Mendelssohn’s more sinuous melodies, and sometimes she seemed rather more meditative and inward than dramatic and expressive, but she was splendid as Queen Jezabel, her voice acquiring a more expressive edge and her vocal characterisation instantly convincing.

Andrew Kennedy’s fine tenor voice was as attractively lyrical as ever. He is one of those performers who, beyond their obvious accomplishment, communicate such an evident pleasure in what they are doing and in the whole musical work in which they are involved that their performances have an additional appeal. Here Kennedy’s unexaggerated lyricism was particularly delightful in his contributions as Obadiah, the sympathetic vizier; as King Ahab he was vocally assured but fell short of a real characterisation of this unpleasant figure. Elin Manahan Thomas was heard only in such passages as the early duet (“Lord, bow thine ear to our prayer”) with Anna Leese and the later unaccompanied Angelic trio (“Lift thine eyes to the mountains”) with Leese and Wendy Dawn Thompson. This trio was sung with particular charm and beauty. It is a pity that Elin Manahan Thomas’s voice wasn’t used a little more extensively. Its qualities contrast so clearly with those of Anna Leese’s voice, that to have employed in it at least some of the Angel’s arias would have served a real musical and dramatic purpose. The treble James Lloyd-Smith acquitted himself well in his brief contributions as the Youth/Boy (certainly a great deal better than this reviewer did many years ago in an amateur performance of the work!).

Thierry Fischer brought to the work a splendidly varied sense of pace, responsive to the dramatic and intellectual structures of this far from “faded” masterpiece, by turns rapturous, incisive, dancingly rhythmic and incandescent. Elijah is one of those works in which Mendelssohn shows himself the master of his inheritance – of Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven – and yet achieves a musical voice which is distinctly his own. Here, under the assured direction of Thierry Fischer, choir (for whose work there can be unqualified praise), orchestra and soloists made out a compelling case for the work which goes beyond mere questions of ‘fashion’. I have never been able to understand the judgement made by such as Charles Rosen, who dismissed Mendelssohn’s oratorios as mere “religious kitsch”. Good performances such as this make such judgements seem peculiarly imperceptive.

Glyn Pursglove

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