MUSIC : Baritone Loves Exchange With Chorus in ‘Elijah’ Oratorio

It wasn’t so long ago that Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” was No. 2, right up there behind Handel’s “Messiah” in popularity and frequency of performances. But things changed. Maybe it was overexposure through too many amateur presentations, or perhaps it was a sea change in musical tastes. At any rate, “Elijah” has pretty much left the boards, at least temporarily.

It is, however, showing up at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Sunday, and for baritone Sherrill Milnes, who will sing the title role with the Pacific Chorale, it remains “timeless, and a towering masterpiece, and I jump at the chance to sing it.

“My passion is no less for oratorio than for opera,” says Milnes, who has sung at the Metropolitan Opera in New York for more than 25 years.

Milnes, 57, was born in northern Illinois, where his mother directed a church choir and founded the Downers Grove Oratorio Society, “which is still in existence,” he says. From his mother he learned roles in “Messiah,” “Elijah” and a number of Bach cantatas as well as such repertory staples as the Mozart, Brahms and Verdi requiems.

But “for all the genius of those composers, most (of those works) are not story pieces,” Milnes says. “They don’t have the give-and-take between the soloists and the chorus that ‘Elijah’ has. It’s a powerful work.”

The oratorio, based on Old Testament accounts from the books of Kings I and II, includes Elijah’s challenge to the priests of the Canaanite god Baal to entreat their god to light a fire beneath a sacrificial altar. Nothing comes of their supplication, but when Elijah prays for the God of Israel to light a fire beneath His altar, “the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (I Kings 18:38).

The work ends with a mighty chorus describing Elijah being taken up into heaven in “a chariot of fire, and horses of fire.”

Although he has sung the role “close to 100 times,” including performances with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa and James Levine, Milnes will be making his West Coast debut in the role when he sings with the Pacific Chorale.

The role “is a tour de force,” Milnes says. “There are wonderful things for the other soloists, but (Elijah’s) the main one. And there are these huge choral sounds, which you can’t duplicate with chamber volumes.” Indeed, music director John Alexander has beefed up the chorale to almost 200 voices for the performance.

“You have to dig into your soul more than you do for most operatic characters,” Milnes says. “That’s the challenge--to make the character live and make the audience believe these things are happening.”

What: Mendelssohn’s “Elijah,” sung by the Pacific Chorale, conducted by John Alexander.

When: Sunday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m.

Where: The Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit. North to Town Center Drive. (Center is one block east of South Coast Plaza.)

Wherewithal: $15 to $100.

Where to call: (714) 252-1234.