COVINGTON - The Faure Requiem is different.  Most other works can
be played well or better, they can have good parts interspersed with
passages that don't quite measure up.  The Requiem is not degree-tolerant.
Personally, at least, I never heard a "pretty good" Faure.  The Requiem has
to be perfect and it has to be played as one piece, otherwise it doesn't
"work."

The May Festival's Faure tonight passed that impossible test, in a
seamless, simply wonderful performance, providing a profound musical
experience.

The May Festival Chorus, which normally performs under the direction of
James Conlon at the festival's home, in Cincinnati's Music Hall, this time
crossed the Ohio River into Northern Kentucky, and here it sang for its own
terrific director, Robert Porco, in the newly renovated Cathedral Basilica
of the Assumption.

The first surprise was the sound.  It was unlike the echo-filled,
cotton-in-the-ear acoustics of big churches.  Rather, the place has a
near-concert-hall quality sound, perhaps because of its unique architecture
of stained-glass windows constituting most of its walls.  At any rate,
instead of the usual "church sound" defeating the quiet Faure work even
before it begins, the Basilica provided a safe place for the music, and
Porco took full advantage of it.

The Introit opened almost imperceptibly, and as the volume increased very
slowly, it was not obvious that there is a difference between the sound
rising from nowhere at the beginning and it being sustained and broadened
- there was only a sense of timelessness and nothing material pressing in.
an extraordinary feeling.  Perhaps even more importantly, there was nothing
artificial about the performance, no reaching for effect, just a marvelous
chorus singing great music at the top of its collective, no-exceptions
best.

The chorus performance was uncanny also in that no distinctions were
obvious between the sections: they completely fused in the performance,
until the very end, when baritones and basses sustained a soft crescendo
against the higher voices in the closing bars of In Paradisum.

William Stone sang the Hostias and Libera Me solos with great simplicity
and performing as a member of this extraordinary musical community.
Cynthia Haymon made the listener wish Faure had not been so parsimonious
with the soprano, restricting the role to Pie Jesu.  The entire aria came,
soared and ended in one breath, the notes turning into a single prayer.
Everything Haymon has done at the festival indicates that a promising
young soprano has turned into a mature, stunning artist.

The chamber orchestra from the Cincinnati Symphony was breathing, singing
with the chorus.  Cellos were especially magnificent and Rebecca Culnan's
affecting violin solos both led the way and humbly supported the music.

This was more than a Requiem to remember; for this listener, at least, it
became a new standard for the work.

The concert opened with a very brief program by the May Festival Youth
Chorus, under James Bagwell.  Selections of tiny pieces by Beethoven and
Bernstein, and a spiritual did not a real concert make to strut the stuff
this capable young group clearly could have offered.  In the miniscule
"Birthday Cantata for Prince Lobkowitz," the teenage soloist, Megan
Aylward, sang with impressively secure intonation.

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
[log in to unmask]