MUSIC REVIEW : The ‘Cute’ Beatle’s Cute Oratorio

The official title page tells it all. Redundantly, eccentrically and egocentrically.

The work that was given its West Coast premiere at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Saturday by William Hall and the Master Chorale is officially billed as “ ‘Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio’ by Paul McCartney and Carl Davis.” Therein lie several pretentious tales.

The so-called cute Beatle, now 50, decided some time ago to invade and conquer the world of so-called classical music. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic gave the instantly visible native son a commission to help celebrate its 150th anniversary in 1991. Being a musical illiterate, not to mention a stranger in symphonic paradise, McCartney enlisted the collaboration of Davis, a television and film composer who also happens to be a conductor (not to be confused with Colin or Andrew).

The result, first performed in Liverpool a year ago in June, is a cute oratorio. Also a padded, vapid, recycled, cross-dressed, sentimental, pretty-pretty oratorio--the sort of thing that gives saccharine a bad name.

It has, of course, been heard around the world. The glamorous premiere and, more important, its lavish preparations were documented on TV in an overloaded extravaganza that has been preserved for a doubtlessly grateful posterity on laser disc and videocassette. The CD version has long been in the stores.

The first U.S. performance took place at Carnegie Hall last November. Now the would-be high-brow McCartney show, all 95 minutes of it, is hitting the road.

No one takes it very seriously, of course, on musical terms. But those who choose to perform it take it very seriously on commercial terms.

Even with a lot of help from friend Davis, Paul McCartney does not make very good music in “Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio.” He does, however, make very good money. The top ticket in Orange County cost $100, and the 3,000-seat house looked nearly full.

What, me cynical? Perish the thought.

The masses approached the concert in a mood of festive anticipation. The same profound question was on all lips. It reverberated around the lobby.

Would Paul be here?

No. Alas. He would not.

Nor would Eleanor Rigby. And this, all too clearly, wasn’t another yesterday.

The best Beatles tunes were tough, taut and quirky, sometimes even sophisticated. They harbored neat harmonic surprises and were buoyed by brash rhythmic vitality.

In his highfalutin oratorio, McCartney turns his back on most of that good stuff. He comes up with a nice melody here and there, but, perhaps inadvertently, he cloaks even his best ideas in banality.

When McCartney puts on airs, his folksy-popsy-snazzy music makes Menotti sound like a genius and Bernstein like a god. He cranks out pictorial devices that work better in bad movies and outdated Broadway musicals. When bathos beckons, he decides that louder and thicker is deeper and better.

His oratorio is a super-sanitized quasi-autobiographical survey of a little Liverpudlian’s early life and love. In subject and in tone, it stops safely short of rock.

The text, McCartney’s own, traces the prodigal hero’s progress from wartime childhood to marital bliss, with numerous domestic, social and moral crises swiftly surmounted en route. Homilies abide, as the composer-librettist embraces the quaint Quaylian virtue of family values.

The apotheosis offers comfy spiritual platitudes: “Safe and sound in His eternal love, we have found salvation,” the principals sing. “God is good without an O.”

The repetitive score chugs and sighs along in what first seems sympathetic naivete but soon becomes pesky primitivism. It’s a gift to be simple, a curse to be simplistic.

Although McCartney’s invention is modest, his forces are ambitious. He employs a full symphonic orchestra, a solo violinist, an adult chorus, a boys’ choir, a central boy soprano and four operatic voices. He keeps everyone reasonably busy, and manages to avoid serious tangles.

It is unlikely that a musician as discerning as William Hall could regard “Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio” as a masterpiece. No matter. He conducted it as if it were just that--with dynamic sweep, with precision, obvious care for precarious balances and a heroic concern for sustaining tension against the odds.

The sweetheart-soprano solos were written for Kiri Te Kanawa, who abandoned this ship after the world premiere. Carol Neblett had been scheduled to do the honors here, but she was replaced, for unannounced reasons, by Ruth Golden, who sounded properly ethereal at top range and rather thin below.

Jon Garrison sang the protagonist’s music with a perfect combination of lyric bravado and sensitivity. Lucille Beer delineated the diverse stances of teacher, mourner and nurse with deft theatricality and plush mezzo-soprano tone. Richard Fredricks, an old friend from the New York City Opera, provided sonorous comic-relief as headmaster, preacher and resident drunkard.

Anthony Kalomas piped most of the boy-soprano solos sweetly, sweetly seconded by his colleagues of the Costa Mesa Children’s Chorus. Albert Stern dazzled in the incidental violin indulgences.

The Master Chorale of Orange County sang with lusty fervor and hushed piety, as needed. The Master Chorale Orchestra, whatever that may be, played splendidly.

The communal spirit was willing. The music was mush.

And thus ends Martin Bernheimer’s review of “ ‘Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Oratorio’ by Paul McCartney and Carl Davis” by Martin Bernheimer.

Peace.