Performance:The Messiah

Auckland Town Hall

Review: Tara Werner


Picture a rather stout, heavily built man in his mid-50s, sitting in his London study during mid-summer.

On the floor around him are scattered sheets of music, some still wet with ink.

He has hardly slept for days, eating sporadically, feverishly jotting down a constant and seemingly endless flow of melody.

Georg Friedrich Handel headed the initial page of the score "Messiah, an Oratorio," dating it August 22, 1741. Some 265 pages were created in the space of only three weeks, most without any correction or any sign of indecision.

On Monday night, the Auckland Choral Society under conductor Peter Watts, with soloists Jenny Wollerman, Helen Medlyn, Kenneth Cornish and Robert Wiremu, sang the fruits of Handel's effortless labour.

The Messiah is a musical institution in Auckland, for a very valid reason. It is an amazing work, as fresh today as when it was penned.

All the familiar pages were there, but this year Watts' selection from the variants of the 53-piece oratorio included the little-sung soprano arioso "But Lo the angel of the Lord came upon them."

In terms of the singing, though, this was an average performance, with only Part Two really firing, especially with the choruses.

Of the soloists, both Cornish and Wiremu seemed more comfortable with the music, singing a fluid and musical account.

In comparison, Wollerman and Medlyn seemed to go for an overly operatic approach, and in the duet "How Beautiful are the feet" were quite out of balance with each other.

Medlyn's strong sense of drama was only really suitable for "He was despised and rejected," with the mezzo-soprano surprisingly astringent in many of her other solos.

And Wollerman, while expressive, also had a habit of swallowing her words.

The Pipers Sinfonia, whose attention to stylistic detail was noticeable, ably accompanied the singers and choir. Organist James Tibbles provided a solid foundation to the choruses, and Watts directed from the harpsichord with panache.