Spokane Symphony Chorale excels in ‘Carmina Burana’
Betty Kiemle had a birthday last week, and decided to throw a party and invite some friends. The arts patron and Spokane Symphony benefactor’s notion of a party venue is not a quiet table at the back of a posh restaurant, but the Martin Woldson Theatre at the Fox, which was filled to capacity Thursday for the gala performance she sponsored of Carl Orff’s celebrated 1937 secular cantata, “Carmina Burana.”
The task of organizing the entertainment fell to the symphony’s music director, Eckart Preu, who knows how to put on a show. The stage struggled to hold the musical forces he assembled: the full orchestra the Spokane Symphony Chorale, Spokane Area Youth Choirs, the Whitworth Choir, the Eastern Washington University Symphonic Choir and three outstanding soloists: soprano Dawn Wolski, baritone Aaron St. Clair Nicholson and tenor Christopher Pfund.
Standing before this mass of musicians, conductor Preu was anything but cowed or intimidated. He was in his element, navigating his forces through the technical shoals Orff set in their path, and producing the range of effects the composer intended, from poignant delicacy through lascivious eroticism to triumph and exultation. Through it all, Preu exhibited his characteristic ability to bind diversity together into a cohesive whole, never losing sight in meditative languor or in the doldrums of self-appreciation.
Unlike most German choral works from J.S. Bach through Anton Bruckner, in which strings dominate, the role of the orchestra in “Carmina Burana” is founded in percussion. As we heard in the brief sixth section, the strings and brass are used more to emphasize rhythm than to voice melody.
No section of the orchestra worked harder or more constantly than the percussion, under its leader, Paul Raymond, and the orchestra’s rock of Gibraltar, timpanist Adam Wallstein. Percussion creates the massive power behind the bleak “hymn” that both opens and closes the work, “Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi,” yet it also creates some of the work’s most delicate moments, as in the duet between Wallstein and principal flute Bruce Bodden in the sixth section. Orff asks for tremendous virtuosity even from the bass drum, executed with amazing precision by another of the orchestra’s pillars, Rick Westrick.
Still, the chief role of the orchestra in “Carmina Burana” is to support the chorus and soloists, all of whom deserved the time they spent in the spotlight. The Symphony Chorale, augmented by the choirs from Whitworth and EWU, excelled in those things that are most difficult for a large choral group: maintaining a beautiful tone while singing softly, articulating the text clearly and meaningfully, and, perhaps the most admirable, projecting a unity of feeling and expression that reaches out into the audience and demands unflagging attention. Orff’s sensitive use of a children’s choir was brilliantly justified by the Spokane Area Youth Choirs, who matched the technical discipline of their older colleagues.
The three vocal soloists are all veterans of many performances of “Carmina Burana,” and their contributions were distinguished by technical mastery and vivid characterization. Soprano Wolski, reprising her debut role with the Spokane Symphony, struck an ideal poise between innocence and eagerness in Section 21, “In Trutina (In the Balance),” while maintaining purity of tone. Nicholson displayed a burnished baritone of surprising steel and strength in its upper range. Whether complaining of a life wasted in sensual pursuits (Section 11), or exulting in the very same (Section 13), Nicholson matched his technical virtuosity, which is considerable, with his dramatic conviction. Tenor Pfund made the most of his star turn as the swan commenting on his own roasting in Section 12. The part is so absurdly high that most tenors are forced to use falsetto almost throughout. Pfund, however, has both the courage and the chops to take the part largely from the chest, while retaining the tone of whining lamentation required by the text: a tour de force.
While the final fortissimo was still dying away, the audience rose to its feet with applause that was not merely appreciative, but ecstatic, as though they wished to return to the performers in an instant all of the energy transmitted to them during the preceding memorable hour.