Reviews 2015
Reviews 2015
✭✭✭✭✩
by George Frideric Handel, directed by Joel Ivany & Jennifer Nichols
Against the Grain Theatre, Harbourfront Centre Theatre, Toronto
December 16-19, 2015
“Glad tidings of good things”
Stage Door does not ordinarily review oratorios, but Against the Grain Theatre’s version of Handel’s Messiah is no ordinary production. Unlike other productions of Handel’s most-performed oratorio, AtG’s is fully staged. The most important fact is that the soloists and chorus have memorized their parts. This alone gives this Messiah more immediacy than any other you are likely to see. Beside this, the soloists and chorus wear costumes, their movements have been directed and choreographed and the production has been sensitively lit. This adds a dynamic visual component to the oratorio simply lacking in other performances. Director Joel Ivany and choreographer Jennifer Nichols are respectful enough of the work not to force a concept on it but rather to emphasize the work’s inherent drama.
AtG is not the first company in Toronto to stage an oratorio by Handel. Opera Atelier staged Handel’s early Italian oratorio La Resurrezione (1708) in 1999. In 2012 Volcano and the Classical Music Consort staged Handel’s cantata Clori, Tirsi e Fileno (1707) in various rooms of the Gladstone Hotel. The Canadian Opera Company has presented staged version of two Handel oratorios, Hercules (1745) in 2014 and Semele (1744) in 2012, but for both of those works Handel was accused in his own day of writing operas disguised as oratorios. AtG first presented a staged Messiah in 2013. Since, as Ivany notes, the direction and choreography for the current production are completely new, the current staging is essentially a new production.
Handel’s Messiah (1745) is quite different from any of those works. Unlike them and other well-known oratorios by the composer such as Saul (1738), Judas Maccabaeus (1746) or Solomon (1749), the four soloists do not portray named characters and, while the action has a definite theme, there is no plot.
To give cohesion to the movement they lend the oratorio, Ivany and Nichols choose two abstract concepts. The first, described by Ivany as “The Story” of the oratorio, is a self-referential portrayal of the soloists freeing themselves from the constraints of the conventions of oratorio. The Tenor (Owen McCausland) enters in traditional oratorio garb – formal suit, shoes, tie and holding a music binder – but during his first aria “Comfort ye”, he seems to take the words to be “Be more comfortable” and proceeds to divest himself of his jacket, shoes, tie and binder to be more in line with the barefoot Chorus.
Soon the Bass (Stephen Hegedus) follows the Tenor’s lead. Ivany claims that the Alto (Andrea Ludwig) “casts off her shackles in “But who may abide”, though all she casts off are her shoes. The Soprano (Miriam Khalil) goes farther during “There were shepherds abiding in the fields” when the Chorus removes the overskirt of her formal gown to reveal a cutout showing off her legs. The Alto’s overskirt also disappears but in a less theatrical fashion revealing a gown without a cutout.
Ivany and Nichols communicate this by means of a fifth character, whom they do not name. He (tenor Joshua Wales) takes on the role of the coryphaeus, or chorus leader, in a Greek chorus, an individual who acts on behalf of the Chorus. Wales appears on stage during the opening “Sinfony" before anyone else. During the severe opening chords he mimes a man in an agony of depression. Yet, as the music continues he rises up from his crouching position and lays himself bare-chested, arms extended and face up on one of the six white oblongs that make up the set. We might mistake this pose of one of exhaustion, but it is also the traditional pose for enlightenment as in Bernini’s statue of the Ecstasy of St. Teresa (1652). Wales is then literally more exposed and more unconfined that any the soloists or choristers will be at any time during the oratorio.
While Wales is in this position the Chorus enters, barefoot but still in formal attire, and begins disorganized freestyle dancing while totally ignoring him. They depart as the Tenor enters, but seeing them and seeing Wales leads the Tenor to consider his formal attire out of place. Throughout the rest of the oratorio, Wales serves as the one who introduces the soloists to the gathered Chorus. The soloists in Messiah are all messengers of great news – first of the coming of Christ, then of his death and resurrection. As Ivany and Nichols have staged it, it appears that Wales as Chorus Leader has had a revelation in the first moments of the work and is thus introducing to the people of the world, represented by the Chorus, the messengers who have the pieces of the revelation that he wants the world to know. Often, Wales will make the same gestures as the soloist as if coaching the singer or joyfully reflecting the meaning of their words. In this, Wales may represent not merely the Chorus Leader but the creative genius behind Handel’s creation of Messiah itself.
From the moment the Chorus re-enters the stage, this time from aisles of the theatre, their movements are no longer disorganized but ordered and serve to enhance the imagery of the soloists’ words or their own. Thus in the Bass’s air “The people that walked in darkness”, the men of the Chorus form two lines with inner arms outstretched so that the Bass mimes making his way blindly through a dense forest as he walks between the rows. Or in the Soprano’s air “He shall feed his flock”, during the words “take his yoke upon you”, the Chorus breaks into loving pairs (with two same-sex couples), the yoke being love, who slowly dance together. When the Soprano sings “ye shall find rest”, the pairs have sunk to the ground together in sleep.
For the following chorus, “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light”, the Chorus rises up as one and the men divest themselves of their jackets which they throw to the Chorus Leader so that their burden (of clothing) literally is lighter. The Chorus Leader is now burdened with their jackets, but is overjoyed since his fellows have realized the key insight of his revelation. People are bound together by a greater bond than that of “the kings of the earth”. As the Chorus sings later on, “Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us”.
Symbolically, then, Ivany and Nichols have linked their breaking the bonds of the oratorio tradition with the oratorio’s message to the people to throw off their bonds to earthly power. To make this perfectly clear, for the Hallelujah Chorus, Ivany and Nichols have the Chorus re-enter the stage again through the audience, but this time each section – tenors, bases, sopranos, altos – line up behind the soloist of their voice type, the most potent sign of order in the production. The famous chorus reaches a climax when the Choral Leader, standing on one of the set’s pillars, falls backwards into the crowd – a trust fall that shows he has faith the Chorus now shares his enlightenment.
There are deviations from the narrative that the direction and movement have created. “All we like sheep”, the chorus in Handel with the worst-ever cut-off line, is dealt with humorously. The Chorus huddle together, individuals periodically turning “every one to his own way”, while Hegedus as a sheep baas now and then and becomes the resident clown, investigating the musicians and the audience before returning to the stage. More controversially, Ivany decides that the Bass’s air “The trumpet shall sound” should also be light-hearted. For the line “this mortal must put on immortality”, Ivany has Hegedus take off his outer clothing to reveal a golden spandex bodysuit underneath. Hegedus takes his discarded shirt, ties about his neck like a child making a cape and runs about the stage. A superhero, however, is not an image of immortality. Even Superman and the god Thor are mortal. Although the audience thought this sequence quite amusing, musically and symbolically it is one of the work’s most profound statements. The Bass sings, “Behold, I tell you a mystery” and if it is to be staged, it should suggest something mysterious, not comic.
Musically, the production is of a very high order. Conductor Christopher Mokrzewski led the 18-member orchestra with a slightly quicker than usual pace which meant that the music always sounds lively and the slow portions never lugubrious. Though the COC Ensemble Studio, Tapestry, Queen of Puddings and the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus have all performed operas in the space, this is the first time the acoustics of the Harbourfront Centre Theatre sounded dry and made the orchestra sound bass-heavy. It’s possible that this came about because the instruments were not facing into the auditorium but toward its north wall so that the conductor’s body would not obscure the stage. In contrast, the singers who did direct the voices into the auditorium arrived at the ear cushioned in air.
Stephen Hegedus is the star of the four soloists. Not only is he given more to do physically and of greater variety, but he does it all with panache. His seemingly depthless voice has a tone a black as night and can create an instant air of majesty. Soprano Miriam Khalil has a voice as unusual as it is gorgeous since it emerges with brightness of a soprano but with the timbre of an alto. This combination plus her gift for phrasing brings out the profundity of all her music, especially the famous air “I know that my Redeemer liveth”.
Owen McCausland has a rounded silvery tenor and a gift for acting that lends authority to each of his airs. In contrast, alto Andrea Ludwig, who has a lovely voice, for some reason can not match her colleagues in lung-power. Her best air is “He was despised” where Handel’s accompaniment is sparser than usual and allowed her voice to cut through. Though not a vocal soloist, Joshua Wales as the Choral Leader has such stage presence that he deservedly serves as the presiding spirit of the production. The beauty of his movement combined with his natural expression of joy seem to illuminate everything around him.
The sixteen-member chorus is thoroughly excellent if not impeccable. But considering how much more they are required to do than choristers in any other Messiah, any small lapses in precision are easily overlooked. In fact, having seen Messiah sung memorized and given movement, it will now be very difficult for me to see the work the standard way with singers barricaded behind music folders and confined only to the small space in front of their chairs. Against the Grain has indeed liberated Messiah, and in liberating the performers has also liberated the audience. Let’s hope AtG revives it again soon.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) The cast of Messiah (Jason Wales with back turned) during the Hallelujah Chorus; Jason Wales and Chorus; Jason Wales and Miriam Khalil; Stephen Hegedus and Chorus. ©2015 Darryl Block.
For tickets, visit http://againstthegraintheatre.com.
2015-12-17
Messiah