Getty’s Outdoor Acoustics Favor Orchestra, Not Singers, in ‘Echoes’

The second concert in the summer series at the Getty Center sharpened critical acoustical issues about the facility as a new outdoor concert venue. Pure orchestral works were in better focus than works that mixed instruments and voice.

Pasadena Symphony music director Jorge Mester led members of his orchestra and several singers in a sensitive and well-conducted four-part program Saturday as part of the museum’s “Ancient Echoes: Music and Dance Evoking Greco-Roman Antiquity” series.

Prominent harp soloist JoAnne Turovsky in Debussy’s “Danse sacree and danse profane” could be heard distinctly and yet integrated in the chamber music ensemble. It was a tender and suave performance.

This was not true in the case of the singers, particularly at the start, in Satie’s “Socrate.” To be sure, Satie’s “drame symphonique” is a subtle work in any situation, devoid of overt effects and relying completely on purity and directness of textual delivery. It may not have been a wise choice for the site, and this is not to consider the occasional passing helicopter.

Kimball Wheeler (Alcibiade), Virginia Sublett (Socrate), Jacqueline Bobak (Phedre) and Lisa Popeil (Phedon) worked hard, but often their words were lost. Although everyone was amplified, the voices tended to disperse into the night air. Each singer sounded dry and thin, especially at the top of her range; the lower and midrange projected better.

Britten’s “Phaedra” is more varied in instrumentation and dramatic effect. Here, Wheeler’s textual projection was clearer. But, again, any bloom in the voice, any subtlety, any vocal coloring didn’t make it very far into the audience, at least not to the back row of the small audience.

Stravinsky’s white-on-white ballet, “Apollon musagete,” which closed the program, sometimes faded into the ambient noise from the nearby freeway and the movement of the wind. But enough could be heard to know it was an affectionate and warm performance, with a touching apotheosis.

The same program was also scheduled to be performed Sunday. The next in the series--the music of ancient Greece heard on reconstructed period instruments--will take place Saturday and next Sunday. The amplification issue may surface again.