HONOLULU - In his three-minute role in Orff's "Carmina Burana," the
singer is to convey the inexplicably hilarious (if gruesome) demise of
the swan with a vocal line that consistently forces an "ordinary" tenor
into counter-tenor range.  The practical solution is to sing falsetto.

Fortunately for the audience this afternoon in Blaisdell Hall, Laurence
Paxton is neither ordinary nor practical.  He didn't try to sing those
extraordinary notes from the chest, but he was not yodeling either.  He
just *sang* it, dramatically, grippingly, interacting with the chorus,
having the audience in his pocket, creating a Moment.

Those three minutes alone would have made the performance notable,
but everything else fell in place as well, in a world-class concert,
a veritable apotheosis of a superheated 66-year-old German schlock into
a symphonic/vocal masterpiece.

The baritone, who has a great deal more to sing, was Lorenzo Formosa, a
singer without a big voice and apparently fighting a cold, but he kept
building the performance until emerging as a superb artist...  including
fine execution of the sadistic composer's demands for jumps from low
bass to the tenor range.  Alice Berneche's soprano is clean and warm,
she held quiet but commanding notes forever, creating a virtual chamber
orchestra in her throat, providing beautiful counterpoint.

The main responsibility for this memorable event belonged to the conductor.
Karen Kennedy is director of the Honolulu Symphony Chorus and artistic
director of the Hawaii International Choral Festival, whose centerpiece
this performance was.  She created a perfect arch, a seamless line from
beginning to end, consistent balances (against an unfortunately distant
placement of the chorus deep upstage), maintained those powerful rhythms,
brought out every note of the snappy syncopation, indulged in the sweeping
lyricism of the work, without overdoing it.  Her control of the abrupt
tempo changes, her clean cutoffs were consistent, masterful.

The main chorus - an amazing instrument, especially the sopranos - along
with the University of Hawaii Chamber Singers (also Kennedy's), Randall
N.  Wolfe's Cincinnati Boychoir, and Takashi Kawabara's Merveille Chorus
of Izumi City (near Osaka) all sang their hearts out for Kennedy, and
yet there was none of the huffing-and-puffing to blow the walls down.
This was a performance of power, not of mere volume.

The orchestra was a vital part of the proceedings, and thereby lies a
double myth-buster.  Choral conductors are usually not at their best
with orchestras, some say; others are foolish enough to claim that
conductors in general have less to do with the outcome than the quality
of the orchestra.  Well!  Those misguided souls should have been in
Blaisdell Hall today.

Not only did Kennedy lead the orchestra in one of the best performances
I heard from the band (including a decade of reviewing it back in the
distant past), but she did so after the first half of the concert, which
was a study in contrast.  Another conductor was in charge of Haydn's
Symphony No.  101, in a performance lacking in precision, humor, charm,
elegance and soul.  And yet, under Kennedy, all those qualities were
richly in evidence (except for elegance, which is not of Orff) - so a.
conductors do matter, and b.  (some) choral conductors can bring out the
very best from an orchestra.

With her wizardry with voices and overall conducting ability, Kennedy
should be a prime candidate for working in opera.  I don't know enough
about her background (although I should, given her association with
Stanford University), but apparently her Mozart is good enough to be
featured a few months ago in Carnegie Hall, conducting "Vesperae solennes
de confessore."

Janos Gereben/SF [In Hawaii to 4/10]
www.sfcv.org
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