Orange County Master Chorale Opens in Its 35th Season

The operatic, as opposed to liturgical, character of Verdi’s Requiem has long since ceased to be a scandal, for many reasons. Seldom, though, is Verdi’s drama realized on such human, terror-stricken terms as by William Hall and the forces of the Master Chorale of Orange County, opening the group’s 35th season Saturday evening at Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Given uninhibited and potent ensembles, such as Hall’s 172-voice chorus and the otherwise anonymous Master Chorale Orchestra, the recurrent choral and orchestral cataclysm of the “Dies Irae” hits with visceral fury. There was thunder aplenty in Segerstrom Hall Saturday, balanced and clean for all its violence.

But Hall pointed the whole toward the concluding “Libera Me,” finding much spiritual upheaval and little certainty that the prayer would be answered. It was here that the effort became fully operatic, not in the sense of stylistic indulgences, but as gripping personal drama.

Greatly abetting the cause was the fearless soprano of Elizabeth Biggs. She stormed the heights and plumbed the depths with a skillfully deployed voice of medium weight, expressing real terror in “Tremens factus sum ego” and much worry in the nervous chants. It ended not in confidence but exhaustion.

Her oddly sorted partners in the solo quartet were wide-vibratoed mezzo Leslie Richards-Pellegrini--prone to anticipate climaxes; stentorian but often short-breathed tenor Jonathan Welch, and solid, stolid bass Louis Lebherz.

All four had moments of suspect pitch and articulation, and seemed intent on establishing individual rather than collective identities, but the coarseness of the ensemble actually worked to dramatic advantage, eliminating any sense of theological abstraction from the proceedings.

The uncredited orchestra gave good weight, and Hall’s big choir sang with fluent authority in the outbursts and reasonable clarity in the fugues. Given the dramatic context, it was more the pity that they never approached a true pianissimo, their few whispered utterances aside.

But then neither did the orchestra or soloists. Hall seemed content in many places simply to urge things forward, against the tendency of his soloists to milk every cadence for portamento cream.

If you wanted a sense of lyric poise in the Offertory, or jubilation rather than an aerobics workout in the Sanctus, this was a problematic performance. But for a thoroughly affecting encounter with mortality, it was a knockout.