MUSIC REVIEW : William Hall Leads Fussy ‘War Requiem’

The program magazine for the Master Chorale of Orange County at the Performing Arts Center on Sunday didn’t just herald Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem.”

This had to be “Britten’s monumental ‘War Requiem.’ ” The italicized hype was telling.

Please don’t misunderstand. The work in question is a profoundly moving fusion of the traditional Mass for the dead and the specific war poetry of Wilfred Owen. Britten set the pacifist sentiments in sparse, hauntingly anguished tones--tones intended to celebrate the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral in 1962.

The “War Requiem” is, indeed, monumental. But the performance should proclaim it so, not the printed blurb.

Unfortunately, the performance on this occasion didn’t seem to trust the eloquence of the music. William Hall, though a splendid musician and longtime specialist in this complex challenge, wasn’t content to let Britten and Owen speak for themselves.

As at UCLA two years ago, he interpolated a number of visual gimmicks. They turned out to be superfluous at best. They also trivialized the emotional appeal of both music and text.

The solo tenor and baritone, representing soldiers from opposing countries, modeled contrasting military uniforms from World War I and lounged about a barbed-wire platform at stage right. Despite their costumes and theatrical stances, however, they clutched the score in their hands, oratorio style. It looked silly.

Meanwhile, at stage left, the distant soprano wore a modern evening gown but sang her Latin solos in front of an el-cheapo projection that wanted to suggest a cathedral window. She looked like a fugitive from a Hallmark card.

To make the genuine pathos melodramatic, the lights kept going off and on, picking out the soldiers here, the chorus there, the orchestra in the middle, and fading at the cadence. It looked fussy.

At least we were spared the UCLA slide show of ancient but still grisly war scenes. We should be thankful for large favors.

We also should be thankful for an often affecting performance, tasteless theatrical distractions notwithstanding. Hall conducted a massive, ultra-resonant, virtuosic chorus--the William Hall Chorale and the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus augmented the Master Chorale--with obvious concern for expressive and dynamic breadth.

He moulded the vocal lines with extraordinary flexibility and finesse. He accompanied the awkwardly positioned soloists with obvious sympathy. He elicited poised and precise responses from an ensemble billed as the Pacific Symphony.

Still, there were problems. Sometimes he seemed intent on sentimentalizing the text, and he allowed rhythmic definition to become flabby in the process. The orchestra at his disposal, moreover, was far too small to serve as a proper counterbalance for so big a chorus.

The solo trio was dominated by the tenor. Jonathan Mack sang with all the purity, intelligence and lyrical flair we have come to expect of him in this music.

John Atkins, the forthright and tasteful baritone, encountered some technical difficulties at range extremes.

Karon Poston-Sullivan floated exquisite, radiant high notes in a soprano part that really demands a bigger and darker voice than she commands. Britten wrote this music, after all, for a fervent Soviet spinto, Galina Vishnevskaya.

The rather sparse audience grew sparser as the evening progressed. Those who stayed to the end mustered push-button applause. Can it be that the “War Requiem” is too modern or too demanding for Orange County?