Messiah 2005
Written by Michael Dungan
08 & 09.12.2005 - Handel's Messiah, St Patrick's, Dublin
Resurgam, Irish Baroque Orchestra/Curnyn
Christian Curnyn, who directed the Resurgan chamber choir and the Irish Baroque Orchestra in Handel's Messiah on Thursday night, makes no reference to the study of conducting in his printed biography.
And yet it was Curnyn who was the guiding light in this performance, turning it into something greater than the sum of its very considerable parts and making this Messiah one of the best I've heard in Dublin over the last several years. He had clear ideas about what he wanted and two ensembles capable of doing what he asked.
Many of his tempos were fleet but with no trace of strain, no headlong scramble to achieve high velocity - come what may - in the name of authenticity. He felt free to allow the interlude-like Pifa to breath a relaxed, pastoral air, and to arrest the mounting excitement of the choir's "Worthy is the Lamb" so as to assign a new and slower, more majestic tempo to the final "Amen" chorus, thereby investing it with an unusually potent feeling of power, finality and greatness.
At the other end of the scale were a few breathtakingly high-speed choruses - notably "For unto us a child is born" - in which Curnyn unleashed Resurgam's nimble vocal agility in a way that highlighted the spirit of the text more than it simply showed off.
Tenor Joseph Cornwell and countertenor Stephen Wallace brought a measure of understatement in contrast to the drama and colour Curnyn drew from his period instrument players and choir. Bass Owen Gilhooley took a more theatrical line. The fine quartet of soloists was led, however, by the exceptional presence and unusual blend of vocal beauty and almost speech-like clarity of soprano Claire Booth.
The massive bloom of St.Patrick's acoustic deprived the audience of an appreciable amount of Curnyn's carefully wrought detail.
Despite this, the quality and conviction of the performance created a strong, rare sense of justice being done to this great and oft-heard work.
The Irish Times
Monday, December 12, 2005
Michael Dungan
