Pacific Chorale Makes Word of Difference in ‘Carmina Burana’

Comparisons are no fun at all, but they are inevitable. Between the two entries in this summer’s Southland “Carmina Burana” sweepstakes, the prize has to go to conductor Carl St.Clair, the Pacific Symphony and the Pacific Chorale on Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

Their rivals were the mighty Los Angeles Philharmonic and Los Angeles Master Chorale, led by Carlo Rizzi last month at the Hollywood Bowl. Rizzi had internationally known soloists. But St.Clair had a chorale that made the words count.

What a difference it made hearing vivid and vibrant projection of character according to the particular poems sung.

St.Clair presided over Orff’s music with sweep and well-judged control, ranging through all the pictorial changes. He did make the reprise of the opening “O Fortuna” chorus at the end sound more cold and cruel than agonized and despairing, but that makes sense.

The orchestra responded with rich, well-nourished tone.

Unlike the Philharmonic, Pacific Symphony provided the “Carmina” texts, in a lively translation by Yehuda Shapiro.

St.Clair’s youthful soloists were soprano Jeanine Thames, tenor Glenn Siebert and baritone Andrew Schroeder, all of whom did double duty by singing excerpts from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote” in the first half of the program.

Of the three, Thames had the most versatile tasks, ranging from high-flying coloratura in the Queen of the Night’s second-act aria, “Der Holle Rache” (not “O zittre nicht,” as printed in the program), to character comedy in the patter duet (with Schroeder).

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Amplification makes assessment of voices a bit chancy, but Thames ascended the virtuosic heights with bright agility and brought warmth to her Papagena and Orff opportunities. She had a tendency, however, to chew held vowels, altering their sound.

Schroeder sang with a fine, even and polished baritone that was disappointingly unvarying and unengaging. Unfortunately, with “Tempus est iocundum” (in “Carmina”), he began to rely more on his body than on his voice to project a sense of character.

Siebert sounded more burnished and lyrical in the tortuous high-lying part of “Carmina,” paradoxically, than he did in Tamino’s “Dies Bildnis is bezaubernd schon.”

St.Clair opened the program with a dignified and energetic account of the “Zauberflote” Overture.