STANFORD - Wearing white shoes SO long after Labor Day was Sir John
Tavener's only faux pas here tonight.  Otherwise, the jam-packed Memorial
Church revelled in the magnificent Chanticleer's world premiere of his
"Lamentations and Praises."

This is an important and impressive new work in the theatrical-ecclesiastic
category, on par with Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites" and the
Bernstein Mass.  It is also possibly Tavener's best work.

"Lamentations" is a 70-minute Passion-Mass-Good Friday service, written
for the Chanticleer's 12 singers, organ, and a chamber orchestra of eight,
conducted by Joseph Jennings.  (It's on its way to two co-commissioners:
the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of New
York.)

Tavener spoke briefly before the performance about his Russian Orthodox
faith, quoting Blake - "everything that lives is holy" - and emphasizing
the overwhelming importance of love in religion.

The music is extraordinary:  it combines microtonal vocal passages; what
strongly resemble (but are not) Gregorian chants and plainsongs; soprano
figures soaring over a massive bass cathedral of sound; eminently tonal
structure bent (but not broken) by the proximity of dissonance, atonality,
often a sound neither "Western" nor "Asian"; something reminiscent of
Kitka' s Balkan repertory.  Out of it all emerges not some fashionable chop
suey, but a singular, unique, memorable work of integrity and character.

The performance was near-miraculous, even for the Chanticleer.  With one
Alto out sick, the group still filled the cavernous space as if it were
the Mormon Tabernacle Chorus.  One keeps looking around in vain for some
offstage chorus enhancing the sound or amplification or some plausible
explanation for these few individual voices to be woven together so
grandly, so beautifully - and without pushing or trying to substitute
volume for projection.

The vocal performances are rich in such thrilling, operatic arcs as urgent
cries of "Rise!" resolving into a serene "Risen." Arias, recitatives, duets
blend into one another with Wagnerian disdain for "solo numbers."

Sopranos Matthew Alber, Christopher Fritzsche and Ian Howell, altos Jesse
Antin and Philip Wilder, tenors Kevin Baum, Michael Lichtenauer and Matthew
Oltman, bass-baritones Eric Alatorre, David Alan Marshall and Mark Sullivan
each had extended solo passages while sustaining the chorus producing
sonority suitable for "Boris Godunov."

"Lamentation" opens with a silent procession into the church, the singers
carrying parts of the Cross, which is then assembled and the crown of
thorns is placed on top.  Golgotha and Lament lead to the descent from the
Cross.  The second part is at the entrance to the Tomb, the third is in
Hades and the Resurrection in Hades, "trampling down death by death," and
a silent procession from the church.

Choreographed and directed by Yves Coudray, the work is a semi-staged
affair. Chanticleer members, dressed in Star Trek-influenced hospital gowns
(or old East German "Parsifal" costumes), carry around a picture of Christ
on the Cross, they group in various formations, and at a climactic point
stand together in the dark, serving as a screen for projected pictures of
Madonna and Child and the Crucifixion.

The text, I believe, is from the Russian Orthodox prayer book:  the themes
and tone are familiar to readers of the New Testament, but the wording is
new and different - "Like a pelican, with Your side O Word, by wounding
have You made Your children that were once dead live by sprinkling them
with moisture rich with life."

(Tavener has been drawn to Eastern Christianity by its poetry and
passion.  He has said "I think of (true) Christianity as an Oriental
religion that has been dragged by the heels into Western ways of thinking
by rationalizing. . .  I think that Christianity has never really been
truly understood by the West, except perhaps by the Celts."

(I wonder if the composer's appreciation of the Celts comes from the Roman
historian Diodorus' description of these true-Christians-to-be warriors
marching to battle in bronze helmets and with weapons, but otherwise naked,
"sounding weird, discordant horns, shouting in chorus with deep and harsh
voices, and beating their swords rhythmically against their shields. . .
These Celts, who preserved the heads of their most high-ranking victims
in cedar oil, keeping them carefully in wooden boxes" - sounds and acts,
which.  thank goodness, are not represented in Tavener's work.)

In the quality of the music and the quiet dignity of the presentation,
"Lamentations" realizes what John Adams was trying to do in "El Nino" - a
statement of faith enfolded in music that has its own life and validity,
regardless of the "message."

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]