O.C. MUSIC REVIEW : Met’s Milnes, Pacific Chorale Elevate ‘Elijah’ : The baritone brings power and sensitivity to Mendelsohn’s large-scale oratorio, opening the group’s 25th season.

Large-scale 19th-Century works such as Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” are the raison d’etre of choral groups such as the Pacific Chorale. That group sang “Elijah” in its first and 10th years, and offered it again Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center under music director John Alexander to open its 25th season.

Performances by amateur societies and austere modern tastes may have taken the edge of welcome off the piece, but when it’s done with conviction and a powerful soloist in the title role, as was the case here, the oratorio can still refresh the ear and, yes, even occasionally inspire.

Taking the title role was the Metropolitan Opera baritone Sherrill Milnes, who could fill the hall with ringing tone but also sing with the most charged sensitivity. Although his voice sometimes lost luster in the few lowest notes, Milnes undoubtedly is the model Elijah of our time, both in vocalism and in addressing the text with urgent and intelligent conviction.

When he wasn’t singing, his rapt involvement in the music extended to marking accents with shakes of his head and signaling other musical events through body cues. Too bad what we heard didn’t always match what undoubtedly was in his inner ear an ideal performance.

His three solo colleagues, all of whom took several roles, could not match this level of dramatic involvement, offering instead the generalized attention to words all too drearily common to oratorio performances.

Soprano Angelique Burzynski tended to sound edgy and forced, especially under pressure, but she also sang with spirit and brightness. Mezzo-soprano JacalynBower-Kreitzer began with garbled vocalism but after intermission sounded more focused and direct. Jonathan Mack’s tenor initially emerged pebbly and monochromatic, but he did regain some sweetness whenever he didn’t press the voice too hard.

At 187 strong, the Pacific Chorale made a big, deep and balanced sound and did not need to force dynamics to create volume and depth. But it was capable of great delicacy and clarity of text, as well. Stationed at the back of the third tier, the women of the Valley Master Chorale added a lovely, floating and focused sound as the chorus of angels.

Alexander enforced as much tension, sweep and introspection as reasonably possible, and oversaw well-controlled ebb and flow in dynamic levels. But it was hard not to feel that Mendelssohn’s inspiration did not always sustain the heights and that some of his choruses today sound a bit lumbering and unwarrantedly optimistic.

Reduced to 55 players, the Pacific Symphony often lacked heft as well as incisive attacks in fugal passages, where the strings tended to sound scrubby and scattered. The strings, however, recouped with the light, running figurations in the chorus describing God’s final appearance to Elijah prior to his ascension to heaven (the passages anticipate the scherzo of the “Reformation” Symphony). Elsewhere, too, the orchestra responded to the composer’s often delicate scene painting with fine detail.