You don’t expect to pass a pleasant summer evening contemplating heaven and earth, but in his second and final program leading the Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Yannick Nézet-Séguin left the listener with no other choice. Returning to the first work he officially conducted as the orchestra’s Music Director 13 years ago – Verdi’s Messa di Requiem – Nézet-Séguin achieved every quality one hopes to hear in this monumental work: weight, clarity, tension, balance and ultimately, a sense of transcendence.
The performance, which unfolded with an ideal dramatic flow over the course of 90 minutes, functioned as a study in contrasts. Nézet-Séguin ushered in the music with a soulful hush, the men and women of Albany Pro Musica so reverently quiet in their first utterances of “Requiem aeternam” that many in the audience didn’t seem to realize they were singing until they noticed the projected supertitles. The operatic quartet of soloists – soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, tenor Matthew Polenzani and bass-baritone Alfred Walker – delivered the initial Kyrie eleison without pomp and circumstance, perfectly tuned.
Yet any sense of this as a funereal reading dissipated with the forceful shock and awe of Dias irae, with Nézet-Séguin whipping the chorus into a frenzy and testing the strings, brass and percussion with an unrelenting tempo. Rather than running ragged, the musicians relished the chance to let loose. The first violins sounded as rich and full-throated as I’ve heard all season, and the staccato thwacks of the double basses nearly gave the thunderous timpani a run for its money. Nézet-Séguin maintained this balance throughout the movement, breaking the worshipful moods built in the Tuba mirum and Liber scriptus with bone-chilling cries to the firmament, and bringing a surprising edge to Sanctus.
You can always expect the unexpected when Nézet-Séguin takes up a piece from the standard repertory. Here, he made the striking decision to lean into rests, arguing for the value of silence even in the most stentorian of works. He also coaxed surprisingly lyrical singing from the principal vocalists, all of whom were perfectly capable of turning up the juice when necessary. Walker’s repetition of “Mors” (Death) was practically whispered in Tuba mirum, and although Polenzani produced the requisite ringing high notes in the Ingemisco, he delivered the prayer with an abundant sense of piety. Pérez beautifully floated her sound all evening, spinning out notes until only a quicksilver thread of voice remained.
Cooke dominated much of the performance’s latter half, her plush mezzo ideal for the Agnus Dei and Lux aeterna. Nézet-Séguin’s propulsive launch into the Libera me left Pérez slightly grasping for volume toward the end of the long opening phrase, but she recovered to deliver a deeply felt, almost febrile prostration before God. Albany Pro Musica, superb throughout the evening, functioned as her inner voice in what came to resemble a scene worthy of any high drama. Again, the balance between mighty heft and spiritual solitude was remarkably maintained. This was catharsis, pure and simple.
Nézet-Séguin once said in an interview, perhaps in jest, that he aspired to be Pope as a child. I have no sense of his current relationship to religion, but to watch him in the silence that followed the performance, hands clasped tightly together, I couldn’t help but imagine a moment of communion with some higher power. It was a necessary moment of peace before the torrent of applause that erupted the moment his arms fell to his side: one last juxtaposition in a performance full of them.
Cameron's accommodation was funded by Saratoga Performing Arts Center
