MUSIC REVIEW : S.D. Symphony Off to Good Start

San Diego Symphony music director Yoav Talmi pulled out all the stops for the opening of the 1992-93 season. On the first half of the program, the conductor and orchestra bathed Copley Symphony Hall in the lush sonorities of Richard Strauss’ tone poem “Don Juan.” And for the second half he crammed 200 singers and a children’s choir on stage with the orchestra for Carl Orff’s sensuous secular cantata “Carmina Burana.”

Talmi’s strategy worked surprisingly well at Friday’s opening, especially since the first fall concert usually finds the players somewhat unfocused after playing outdoors all summer. They were, however, ready for the program’s demands, and, combined with the well-disciplined massed choral army, they brought the nearly full house to its feet at the final chord of the Orff.

To open the program, the three brass sections formed a phalanx across the rear of the stage to intone Aaron Copland’s familiar “Fanfare for the Common Man.” Although the entire brass ensemble produced a thrilling massed sound, individual sections proved less reliable when exposed. It was not a happy night for trombones.

Conducting the Strauss without a score, Talmi coaxed its subtle romantic sighs and exuberant effusions with a sympathetic hand. This late-19th-Century repertory is the music closest to his heart. He paced it generously, without a hint of indulgence, and the orchestra responded with equal conviction. The strings displayed a warmth that gave the composer’s expansive themes a halo, and first-chair oboist Giselle Lautenbach’s burnished solos were hypnotic.

Talmi’s approach to Orff’s “Carmina Burana” downplayed the sense of abandon that permeates both score and text, a melange of medieval amatory poems and drinking songs. Choosing to expose the work’s brilliant orchestration and crafty sonic juxtapositions, he wove a fastidious--almost analytical--tapestry. If this choice tilted toward the grandeur of the Gothic cathedral rather than the earthiness of the medieval tavern, it revealed strengths in the score that are not always apparent in more lusty versions.

Baritone Robin Buck brought a fresh, lyrical parlando to his solo tasks, and his rich sonority easily filled the hall. His playful humor as the abbot of drink, “Ego sum abbas,” provided welcome comic relief. On the other hand, tenor Yaacov Zamir safely ventured the stratospheric tessitura of his single solo, “Cignus ustus cantat,” but failed to communicate the comic irony of the roasting swan contemplating his culinary demise.

Although Kerry O’Brien’s clear soprano proved too light for the torch song passions of “In trutina,” it was well-suited to the silvery, flute-like declamation of “Stetit puella.” And her high B-flat in the delicate melisma of “Dulcissime” floated elegantly.

Paired together for the first time at symphony hall, the San Diego Master Chorale and La Jolla Symphony Chorus provided the breadth and depth of choral sound long needed for such large-scale works. (Although the Master Chorale has long been the symphony’s regular guest chorus, the two groups will again combine later this season when principal guest conductor Robert Shaw conducts Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah.”) The Master Chorale, trained by Frank Almond, and the La Jolla Chorus, trained by David Chase, mustered a welcome clarity of diction, considering the welter of medieval Latin, old French and Low German texts.

The singers’ solid body of sound not only balanced the orchestra, but achieved a proper balance between treble and bass voices, an unsolved problem when either chorus has performed alone with the orchestra. Although the grandest sounds of the chorus were reserved for the cantata’s climax, more frequent use of this choral forte throughout the work would have increased the its dramatic impact.