Pygmalion, choir and orchestra ★★★★
Director: Raphaël Pichon. Place and date: Music Palace (19/X/2023)
We already knew the good work of Mr. Pichon and on this occasion he came to sign a season opening “properly”. The Palau – despite the theme of the program – was a party and the musical signature confirmed it. The boy Chadi Lazreq added in the plainchant of Au paradis an important part of sensitivity and topicality, with the director’s good sense of adding fragments unrelated to Mozart’s Requiem which centered the program, and with its naturalness and purity. But, in addition, this little antiphon which opened and closed the program mentioned the “civitatem sanctam Jerusalem”, a detail which brings us closer to the turbulent and explosive situation of this region and its inhabitants. We wish it as a call for peace, perhaps the actors are unfortunately closer to the murderous allusion of the Requiem.
The session had ingredients that help to define it as a conceptual starting point, eloquent in the sense of proposing a risky version (it was not the usual Mozart Requiem), since the Mozart fragments interspersed, both vocal and instrumentals, in addition to being very well executed and assembled tonally, enriched the very irregular discourse of Mozart’s unfinished work.
The boy Chadi Lazreq added sensitivity and topicality, with the mention of “civitatem sanctam Jerusalem”
And to the design of the program was added the performance, excellent, rich in nuances and above all very marked by the director’s criterion of working the phrasing with great tension, which sometimes even hardened the voices of the choir somewhat. , even if it was more expressive.
The choir did a monumental job, with a very good identity of its sections (excellent viola and bass), which we also saw in the solo quartet of the central work, in which it did not have a great role, but left us the vocal depth of mezzo Beth Taylor as a gift.
An image of the historic evening
FILL
Above all, the work of the director was very important, in a very elaborate and refined work, aware of the available resources, working in depth on the nuances, the intensities, and counting on a quality instrumental response, highlighting the woodwinds. and metals. Pichon demanded conviction in the voices with a magnificent response in moments like the sequence, and above all he achieved, even if not emotion (nor is it a work that achieves it ), an interior spirituality that communicates.
A beautiful version therefore, with depth of work and excellence. Good season to all.
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Maricel Chavarria
2023-10-21 10:20:28
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