Review: The miracles of John Adams’ ‘El Niño’

Seventeen years ago, the world confronted a new millennium with dread, frightened by potential international computer shutdowns, outright apocalypse or whatever. But Americans also readily welcomed a possible spiritual, cultural or whatever reset with our trademark optimism. Things looked good if you knew where to look.

Seventeen years later, the computers keep chugging and now bequeath us with the spirit-sapping novelty of an Internet practiced in turning dread into a way of life. It has become heartbreakingly harder to know where to look.

But Friday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the looking got a little bit easier. The Los Angeles Philharmonic gave an exceptional concert performance of John Adams’ revelatory Nativity oratorio, “El Niño.” It was accompanied by a Peter Sellars film, made for the work’s Paris premiere in 2000, which serves as a neighborhood field guide to miracles.

The L.A. Phil gave “El Niño” its premiere in 2003, fully staged by Sellars at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and brought the score to Disney in concert form two years later. By now it is a modern classic. This month there have also been performances in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The Russian premiere of “El Niño” was Nov. 6, two days before the U.S. election. Make of that what you will, this American weapon of subversive optimism.

Handel’s “Messiah” was Adams’ obvious inspiration and the L.A. Phil took the unusual step of actually pairing “El Niño” with its model in back-to-back performances. But the differences between the two are what matter.

Handel’s oratorio is not Christmas-centric; It takes us beyond birth to Resurrection, best serving Easter. Adams, on the other hand, fashioned a Nativity story that is a nativity story. All birth, in it, is miraculous. The texts espouse what the Bible leaves out, the women’s point of view. Spanish-language poetry, mainly by women, is interspersed with biblical narrative. The oratorio ends with instances from the Apocrypha that has Jesus slaying a dragon and willing a palm tree to bend down and present its fruit to his parched mother, showing us, in a musical setting as alluring as a great conjuring act, the curious mystique of fake news.

“The Messiah” Thursday night was so smoothly radiant and elegant as to have the musical equivalent of platinum plating. A small contingent of L.A. Phil players were joined by La Chapelle de Québec, founded by Bernard Labadie, who conducted. The singing was light and airy. Labadie chose lively, joyful tempos. The soloists — soprano Karina Gauvin, mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg, tenor Allan Clayton and bass-baritone Matthew Brook — were fluid to a fault.

What this “Messiah” lacked was any element of surprise. “Comfort ye,” the score’s opening tenor number, became a fleet evening’s theme.

“El Niño” can comfort too, but only through catharsis. Adams works with shocking disconnects that reflect a life journey rather than a divinely ordained one. He begins by setting a medieval carol and shapes the two-hour score with elements of biblical narrative, much of it sung by three glitteringly angelic countertenors, along with both privately personal and socially confrontational poetry for the soloists and chorus that brings the conflict into the 20th century.

An extraordinary original cast helped make “El Niño” a hit, with the solos written for the unique voices and personalities of Dawn Upshaw, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Willard White. New singers have successfully taken their place. Soprano Julia Bullock, who was a student of Upshaw, brought a potent ferocity to “Memorial de Tlatelolco,” the vibrant aria based on Rosario Castellanos’ poem about the 1968 Mexican student revolt. Jennifer Johnson Cano came close to matching Hunt Lieberson’s hauntingly rich mezzo-soprano. Davóne Tines may lack the frightening violence of White’s angry Joseph, but the young bass-baritone adds a spiritual dimension all his own.

With Grant Gershon conducting and his Master Chorale as the chorus, along with members of the L.A. Phil, there was a sense of rightness. No combination of chorus, orchestra and conductor has more experience with Adams’ music, making the rhythmic energy and exact lilt of difficult syncopations sound as natural, yet vastly more vital, than anything heard in the polished “Messiah” the night before.

Adams always wants voices amplified in his operas and oratorios; with the help of Disney’s new audio equipment, Mark Grey turned that into an advantage. The three countertenors — Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings and Nathan Medley — were gorgeous. But they had angelic competition from the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, which performed, effectively, in street clothes.

Then there was Sellars’ film. It has always been controversial. Shot in Joshua Tree and on Dockweiler Beach, it shows scenes of a teenage Latino couple with a newborn baby, along with the police, going through their own spiritual crises. Adams has said that while he finds the film moving on its own, he worries about it taking attention away from the singers.

For me, it added another layer of intense meaning to the performance. It needn’t be watched continually, but it is there when you want it and when you need reminding about how and where to dig for miracles in the wild where they matter most.

mark.swed@latimes.com

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