Baroque Banquet

Conductor Nicholas McGegan once likened soloists at his concerts to guests invited to a dinner party because they’re delightful. And he has characterized the works of Jean Philippe Rameau as “souffle” music.

So McGegan’s concert tonight at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach promises to be a feast; he’ll lead his cohorts in the San Francisco-based Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in a suite from Rameau’s “Les Boreades,” as well as a pair of concerti a due cori by Handel.

McGegan, 49, justified the comparison with souffles in a recent interview from his Berkeley home.

“They’re light and airy but very rich,” he said of the music. “And because they’re very clever compositions, very colorful and beautifully orchestrated, they’re very good for you as well--in moderation.”

Moderation, in the case of Rameau’s music, has been a relatively easy accomplishment for most concertgoers; the music has generally languished in obscurity, except in France.

“The French subsidize their art,” McGegan said. “They can afford to put on one of these things.”

Even Rameau’s orchestral music is “quite expensive,” he said. “Rameau requires a large orchestra, relative to, say, Vivaldi. . . . Rameau’s style [also] is quite complex. Whereas a modern orchestra will play Bach and Vivaldi, even Purcell, and it’s terrific that they do, Rameau is a slightly tougher proposition. You bend all the rhythms, and it’s full of ornaments--so I try to program Rameau with modern orchestras as often as I can.”

The first modern revival of Rameu’s music followed publication of Camille Saint-Saens’ complete edition of Rameau’s music in the late 19th century. Rameau operas have since enjoyed several hundred performances at the Paris Opera and other French venues--but very few in the English-speaking world.

That is, until the runaway success of a production of “Platee” by Philharmonia Baroque, with the Mark Morris Dance Group and fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, at the 1997 Edinburgh Festival--with subsequent performances at Covent Garden and in Berkeley.

The opera is “a glorious malicious frolic,” McGegan said. But the production has not been seen in Southern California. Until it is, we’ll have to be satisfied with orchestral music such as the suite he’s conducting tonight.

In “Les Boreades,” Rameau’s tempestuous music conveys storms and whirlwinds as befitting Boreas, god of the North Wind. It would be Rameau’s final work, penned at a time when, according to “Platee” editor Graham Sadler, he was portrayed as a “withdrawn, desiccated, severe, avaricious cross-patch” as opposed to the “more genial bon vivant” of his youth.

“Les Boreades” was neither performed nor published before Rameau’s death in 1764 at the age of 81. It premiered in London in 1969; the first fully staged performance took place in Aix-en-Provence in 1983 under John Eliot Gardiner with McGegan assisting.

The other half of McGegan’s local program features a pair of concertos for two “choirs” of wind instruments by Handel, a more familiar composer. Many consider McGegan one the world’s foremost Handelians. He’s won the prestigious Handel Prize at the Halle Handel Festival in Germany; he and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra have racked up numerous awards for their Handel recordings on the Harmonia Mundi label.

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McGegan and the ensemble return for another Philharmonic Society of Orange County engagement March 23 at Irvine Barclay Theatre. McGegan says St. Andrew’s and the Barclay are the right size venues for Baroque music, not only for concerts but also for opera.

“I travel all over the world doing Handel opera,” McGegan said. “A lot of the singers I use are American, but most places they can sing Handel operas are in Europe.

“Most theaters here are too big. Even [for] ‘Aida,’ unless you’ve got the elephants, the theaters are too big. A 1,200-seat opera house--ideal for almost all opera with the exception of ‘The Ring’ and a few others--is hard to find in America.”

Handel operas, relative rarities in the United States, are cost effective too.

“Most Handel operas have a cast of six, no chorus and no ballet,” McGegan pointed out. “That makes them more economical than many pieces on the stage.”

* Nicholas McGegan leads the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in works by Rameau and Handel tonight at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, 600 St. Andrews Road, Newport Beach. 8 p.m. $27. (949) 553-2422.