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An all-Italian choral/orchestral concert in the Peruvian National Symphony Orchestra's new homeOct 28 '08 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I thought the chorus, Xavier Fernandez, and Josefine Brivio were outstanding; the orchestra and hall very good; tenor John Schofield not good.
With a sixteen-hour layover and no possibility of getting into the gate and lounge area of the Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima (actually in Callao) on Sunday, we decided to go see the Museo de la Nación (Museum of the Nation) in a new complex across the street from the Biblioteca de la Nación (National Library). The Museum owns many outstanding specimens of pre-Columbian (Inca and pre-Columbian) art and archeology, hardly any of which are on display in the massive new brutalist building (about one quarter of the entrance-level floor plus an exhibition of photographs of the1980s-90s Sendero Luminosa (Shining Path/Maoist) insurgency and massive counter-insurgency. Even reading every label (in English), what was on display only burned through an hour and the gift shop had nothing of interest. I saw that there were s concerts of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional (National Symphony Orchestra) every Sunday at 11:30 in the Auditorio Los Inkas (Inca Auditorium). This struck and strikes me as an odd time. There were no signs revealing what the orchestra was going to play which Sunday, but I thought that if the orchestra and/or the program was bad, we'd at least have somewhere to sleep for a while. After some very slow "fast food" at a Wong's (akin to Target), we got back, purchased cheap tickets (10 soles, the exchange rate is 3.1 soles to one US dollar) and blundered into seats in row P (seats 101 and 102 instead of 1 and 3). I literally did not have time to find and look at the programa within the program booklet, and the auditorium was plunged into darkness that it made it impossible for me to read it. The first piece was not recognizable. I thought that it might be Peruvian, influenced by Respighi. The melodic piece of some austerity that I mistook for neo-Baroque turned out to be the "Crisantemi," which Gicaomo Puccini (1858-1924) wrote as a string quartet "Alla memoria di Amadeo di Savoia Duca d'Aosta" in 1890, which is to say before any of the Puccini operas that are now part of the standard opera repertoire (composed between "Edgar" and "Manon Lescaut"). The "Messa di Gloria" was written even earlier, in 1880, when Puccini was 21 (though begun when he was 17).and had not even written a one-act opera. The mass is primarily choral with a tenor and a bass soloist. It has a lilt that reminds me of Rossini's own youthful mass, "Messe solenelle" (1824). Puccini's Gloria mass is not operatic in the grand, spine-tingling Requiem Mass (1874). It is much lighter, more like Fauré than Verdi,, especially the opening of the "Gloria" (movement (one which lasts 20 of the 46 minutes of the "Messa di Gloria"), which is the movement most displaying of soprano voices. I thought the basses of the National Chorus were especially strong, and the bass soloist, Xavier Fernández, sang far better than the tenor soloist, whom the program identified as a Peruvian tenor, though with the un-Peruvian name John Schofield, whose singing did not lack in passion but was very uncertain in intonation: all over the place, but usually a bit below the notes (that is, flat). I think that the chorus basses and the bass soloist were superior to the chorus tenors and the tenor soloist, rather than the acoustics of the new auditorium conveying bass voice better. My conviction about that was reinforced after a half-hour intermission by mezzo-soprano Josefina Brivio, the soloist in the oratorio (cantata in the view of the anonymous Peruvian program note writer) "Transitus animae" (Transit of the soul) by Lorenzo Perosi (1872-1956). I had never before heard of either Perosi or the work and was relieved that when I told my friend with the most extensive familiarity with "classical" music repertoire, he asked "Who?" (There is one recording of "Transitus" listed on Amazon, a dozen and a half of the Puccini "Messa di Gloria"). From 1898 until his death, Perosi was Maestro Perpetuo della Cappella Sistina, Perpetual Director of the Sistine Chapel Choir (in the Vatican) and reputedly composed between 3000 and 4000 pieces(!), and was very well known a century ago, indeed was, ca. 1900, the most famous of the Veristi (Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea, and Leoncavallo) The tenor and bass both sign in the short :Agnus Dei" (2:42 on the recording directed by Michel Corboz I own). Peculiarly, this is the finale and a very undramatic one. I wouldn't say that Puccini's "Messa di Gloria" ends with a whimper rather than a bang, but it fades away. (The recording, with William Johns, of whom I have no other familiarity, shows that Puccini supplied showy music in the tenor part, too, BTW.) "Transitus" sounded less lyrical to me than the Puccini, and I thought that guest conductor Marco Titotto should have made it easier for Brivio to be heard: that is, tamped the orchestra down a bit. Still, she sang beautifully, the chorus continued to sound muscular with clear intonation, and my doubts about the orchestra disappeared part way through the "Crisantemi." The ensemble, celebrating its 70th year, is more than competent. (And the whitest group I saw in Perú, even more than the chorus.) Obviously, their programs are not the usual chestnuts. They are performing compositions by José Marie Valle Riestra and Arturo Márquez in the next two programs (and Ferde Grofé's "Grand Canyon Suite" which has fallen out of the repertoire of US symphony orchestras), led by Germán Gutiérrez and David del Pino Klinge. I would certainly return to hear the orchestra mid-day on any Sunday I happened to be in Lima. I think the acoustics in the Inka Auditorium are a bit dry (having only heard not-very-dry Italian music conducted by a visiting Italian...). ___ (We then (13:30) when to the cineplex to find a quiet movie to sleep through, but the first shows were still two hours away, so we went back to the airport, spent a lot of time picking out Peruvian CDs to buy with the soles we had left, had some anticuchos (the marinated beef heart dish I had not seen on menus, though early in the trip cuy (guinea pig) was available) and still had hours to wait for the AA paraphenalia to be put up and the multiple security, immigration, customs checkpoints to get into the gate and lounge area for the last three hours.)  |
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