Philharmonic Unleashes Power of Verdi Requiem

Two nights after the Los Angeles Opera had hoped to instill Verdi with modern-day vigor in an updated-to-Hollywood “Rigoletto,” the Los Angeles Philharmonic turned Friday to another Verdi staple in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion: the Requiem Mass. The comparison was illuminating.

The much-anticipated opera production, treated as a major event, proved defective, one of its weak links being the characterless conducting from a prominent British maestro. The Philharmonic’s Requiem is part of a normal subscription week (it got little hype and was performed but twice, Friday and Sunday), yet succeeded brilliantly, one of its triumphs being the bracing, lucid conducting from another prominent British maestro.

Prominent though Mark Elder may be in England--he was for many years music director of English National Opera, and next season succeeds Kent Nagano as music director of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester--he has yet to become as well known as he deserves. The performance of Verdi’s Requiem--as well as his conducting of Elgar and Dvorak on Saturday--demonstrated something rare and exceptional.

Even late in life, Verdi, who always had a rebellious nature against institutions such as marriage and organized religion, saw in the Mass for the dead more an opportunity for raw drama than spiritual transcendence. Yet as the profound man of the theater he was, Verdi then used his complete sway over an audience’s feelings to achieve a sense of spiritual sustenance after all.

Elder, also a man of the theater, began exactly where the Requiem needs to begin, by producing a riveting sense of emotion and irresistible theatrical sweep. In the Dies Irae, he insisted upon the bass drum being hit hard enough to vibrate through a listener’s skin. He gauged the great Verdian climaxes with utter, thrilling surety.

Yet the real key to Friday’s extraordinarily effective performance was in the details. Verdi is a composer with very direct emotional power, but often that is accomplished through great subtlety, a touching inner viola part here or an unpredictable wind syncopation there. Subtle, too, was Elder’s ability to control dynamics, the small swells and decays on a single note that give the illusion of the music controlling our breathing. Even though coping with what must have been a trying rehearsal schedule preparing two programs for the weekend, Elder had the Philharmonic playing at a very high level and with startling clarity. The Los Angeles Master Chorale seemed alive to every word in the text and its meaning.

And Elder also knew how to produce a unified effect from a curiously disparate group of soloists. Alessandra Marc can be alarmingly unpredictable, but when kept under proper rein as she was here, she can be an electrifying soprano force. Stephanie Blythe, more rich and proper alto than operatic mezzo-soprano, made a dark, compellingly powerful sound. Marcello Giordani, the tall and handsome tenor whose vocal insecurities hindered his recent L.A. Opera appearance in Gounod’s “Faust,” was more impressively ringing, although still not over all his rough patches. Denis Sedov, a young and unusually versatile Russian bass, gives the impression of losing himself completely in the music.

Such a vocal quartet could easily have seemed more like four individual characters in their own personal dramas than guides for a recently departed soul to its higher realm. But Elder’s accomplishment was to unleash a momentum that swept along so forcefully that no one--soloists, orchestra, chorus or audience--had the slightest hope of escaping.

On Saturday night, Elder dealt with standard repertory in unstandard fashion. The overture to Verdi’s opera “The Force of Destiny” was uncommonly nuanced. Elgar’s Cello Concerto, with the British cellist Colin Carr as soloist, attracted more attention for stark, unaffected orchestral playing than its soloist who placed perhaps unreasonable expressive expectations in an active vibrato.

Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony had most of the virtues of the Requiem--carefully articulated playing, an alluring sense of lyrical phrasing and an exhilarating rhythmic energy. An un-together moment or two in the finale revealed just how quickly this single performance must have been thrown together, but even that made it sound impressive. Elder’s command over the orchestra gives it a distinct sound that takes almost immediately.