MUSIC REVIEW : Vocals Thin, Dry at Monteverdi Tribute

What was meant as a tribute to Claudio Monteverdi emerged instead as a dutiful ordeal when music director Gregory Maldonado and the Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra offered a long “Monteverdi Remembrance” program, Saturday at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica.

The concert fell exactly two days short of the 350th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Patrons steadily departed, although, to be fair, some returned. They were probably feeding meters in the parking structure across the street.

The chief problem was with tenor Temmo Korisheli’s unreliable, dry and thin vocalism. Perhaps he was having a bad day.

Unfortunately, Korisheli sang not only Nerone and, grievously, Arnalta in an hourlong concert version of “L’Incoronazione di Poppea,” but also the extensive narrator’s role in “Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” as well as several parts in the selection of madrigals from 1619 that opened the program. He was inescapable.

Helping to redeem the situation, however, were sopranos Virginia Sublett and Mary Rawcliffe.

Sublett skillfully probed the various dramatic moods and motivations of the title character. Rawcliffe persuasively shifted as necessary from the joy of Drusilla when she thinks her rival has been murdered to the profound grief of Ottavia as she begins her banishment from Rome.

As Seneca, Edward Levy had only a single opportunity to reveal vocal poise and a rather breathless lower range. He had sounded more impressive in the madrigals, where Sublett and Rawcliffe also proved close enough to being the requisite matched singers in the matchless “Chiome d’oro.”

But a pervasive sameness in vocal and instrumental production throughout the evening also wearied the ear.

Providing accompaniment in varying combinations were Maldonado and Jolianne von Einem, violins; Andrew Picken, viola; Robert Tueller, cello; Byron Schenkman, harpsichord; and Edward Murray, organ. They played on modern replicas of period instruments.