EUGENE - An exciting star was born here tonight.

Amanda Mace, a 24-year-old soprano making her professional concert debut,
could have sung the telephone book and would have still roused the Oregon
Bach Festival opening-night audience to a well-deserved ovation anyway.

What made the event especially significant was that Mace WAS singing
something very similar to a telephone book, albeit for mid-19th century
Naples.  Mace, other young soloists, the festival chorus and orchestra
snatched victory from the yawning jaws of a project that went wrong.

"Messa per Rossini" is not "bad." In fact, it is a pleasant and often
(unintentionally) humorous musical curiosity, a hodge-podge, a potluck
picnic to which almost everybody brought home-made jello.  But an evening
of great - or just worthwhile - music? No.

Verdi who started the ball rolling to honor Rossini's failed when the other
12 participants turned out to be academicians, church musicians, conductors
- not one still remembered today.  and, judging by the work, no reason why
they should be.  Helmuth Rilling's discovery and reconstruction of the work
is a notable research accomplishment, but similar in its accomplishment to
a scholar in the next century finding and dusting off a secret Andrew Lloyd
Webber requiem in honor of Copland.

Verdi's own "Libera Me" is grand, of course, but the other pieces range
from "nice" to ludicrous.  How wonderful then to see this young soprano
come to the fore and nail inferior material with vocal excellence and a
winning, mesmerizing presence.

After getting through things such as Carlo Coccia's tarantella for the
Lacrimosa, knee-slapping music for the climactic day "when the tomb is
rent asunder," amplified, bombastic MTV (Gaetano Gaspari) or second-rate
operetta (Antonio Bazzini), and more such from one or the other of the
interchangeable 12, Mace took matters in hand and paced the assembled
musical forces to victory over the material.

I've seen some promising debuts, but never one so accomplished and
surprising as this.  This was a masterful, memorable performance from
a young, inexperienced singer, strangely and wonderfully natural and
confident.  Pietro Platania's weak music became powerful as Mace stretched
out her arms, an expression of joy and triumph on her face, saying Hosanna
- sincere, believable - a vision of Bruennhilde riding through the air into
battle on Grane.  The voice:  seamless and solid, with perfect diction and
expression.  She made the true agony of Agnus Dei real (even while Lauro
Rossi's music missed the point), and by the time she came to the good
stuff - Verdi's Responsorium - her concern for the eternal rest of the
dead was palpable, affecting.  This time, I saw the potential of a dozen
Verdi dramatic soprano roles in her.  Ready for Verdi and Wagner at 24?
Hard to believe, but there was empirical evidence presented tonight.

First-rate performances came from alto Susan Platts (especially in her
powerful performance in the Agnus Dei), bass Michail Schelomianski (in
Raimondo Boucheron's confusing and confused Confutatis), and baritone
Mkrtich Babajanyan.  Dutch tenor Albert Bonnema struggled with the high
notes; his is a lyric voice and he is trying to squeeze a heldentenor out
of it.

Kathy Romey's Festival Chorus was in mid-season heat even at the first
concert, even with this material:  what a magnificent group this is!  Under
Rilling's direction (he conducted even this material without a score), the
orchestra performed beautifully, the strings, especially the cellos in a
couple of key passages, leading the way.

It is crystal clear that these forces by the time the festival's end
arrives, with the "real thing" - the Verdi Requiem - there will be an
extraordinary musical event taking place in Hult Center.

Janos Gereben/SF
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