In a quarter-century of musical pilgrimage from Dresden to San Francisco
to Leipzig, Herbert Blomstedt has often brought singers from Germany,
Austria and Sweden, and mostly it worked (not half as well as Helmuth
Rilling's similar efforts on his Stuttgart-Eugene shuttle).

But tonight was unfortunate.  There is a baker's dozen of young local
talent who could have done better.

Visiting the San Francisco Symphony, for a series of Bach's `St.  John's
Passion' performances, Blomstedt cast soprano Malin Hartelius, mezzo
Ingeborg Danz, tenors Herbert Lippert and Stanford Olsen, baritone Berthold
Possemeyer, and bass Peter Mattei.  (Danz and Mattei are also Rilling
regulars, Germany apparently being a small place.)

Lippert, who has sung here before and well at that, had one of those
singer-nightmare concerts:  intonation, tempo, projection...  everything
that could have gone wrong, did.  Hartelius has a small, almost soubrette
voice.  Danz, whom I heard do wonderful work in Bach concerts, couldn't
really cope with the huge monstrosity of Davies Hall.  Mattei was OK,
Possemeyer on the dry side, Olsen -- singing the Evangelist -- did very
well.  (The American tenor is not really part of the Blomstedt stable.)

While the orchestra and chorus covered the good-to-excellent range, the
soloists became obstacles in the majestic flow of the Passion.  It was too
too bad.

Janos Gereben/SF
[log in to unmask]