Benjamin Britten's War Requiem staged at the Tel Aviv Opera. The Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, the Israeli Opera Chorus, the Moran Children's Choir, vocal soloists. Conductor: Alexander Joel. Director: Ido Ricklin.

 

Photo: Yossi Zwecker

The first performance of the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten took place at the dedication of the new St. Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry (UK) on May 30, 1962, the edifice built to replace the basilica destroyed in an air raid on the night of November 14-15, 1940. At the premiere, Britten himself conducted the chamber orchestra. The Israeli premiere of Britten’s War Requiem took place at the Tel Aviv Opera on December 6th 2024. Conducting the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion was British-born Alexander Joel. Directing the production was Ido Ricklin, Ula Shevtsov was stage/costume designer, lighting design was by Nadav Barnea, movement design - Nophar Levinger. Vocal soloists were sopranos Shaked Strul and Alla Vasilevitsky, tenors Aaron Blake (UK), Anthony Webb (USA) and Peter Wedd (UK) and baritones Eric Greene (USA), Yair Polishook and Oded Reich, as well as soloists from the Israel Opera Chorus (chorus master: Etay Berkovitch). The Moran Children's Choir was conducted by Carmel Antopolsky Amit. The English- and Hebrew surtitles were translated by Ido Ricklin and edited by Israel Ouval.

 

Marking the composer’s readiness to treat the topic of war explicitly, rather than as a parable or in symbolic form, Britten interspersed the traditional Latin Missa pro Defunctis with settings of the chillingly evocative and pessimistic anti-war poetry “from the trenches” of the British soldier-poet Wilfred Owen (a compositional strategy distressful to the strongholds of tradition of the time.) Owen's poetry is remarkable not only for its content, but also for its use of half rhyme and assonance instead of full rhyme, a style that he is credited with popularizing. His rejection of traditional poetic form and reaction to the horrors of World War I are textbook examples of modernism in poetry. Owen, regarded by many as the greatest poet of the First World War, died in battle in France at age 25 just one week before the end of World War I. Britten produced a powerful, uncompromising coupling of the two texts, their contrasts and ironies, the result being a score of striking originality, one combining the apocalyptic visions of destruction, suffering, and, ultimately, of the eternal (but, from Britten’s pen, unquiet) peace of the Mass for the Dead. Indeed, Britten renders the music of the two texts subtly and disquietingly interrelated through his use of the tritone (known from the late Middle Ages as "diabolus in musica") an element pervading almost every page of the work. He divides the musical forces into three groups - the soprano soloist (here two) and choir accompanied by the full orchestra, the baritone and tenor soloists accompanied by the chamber orchestra and the boys' choir (here, the Moran Children's Choir) accompanied on a small portative organ. (Following one appearance on stage in the opening scene, the children's choir then performed from one of the balconies.) If the War Requiem expresses Britten's passionate statement on the futility of war, Ido Ricklin's production takes it a step further, reinforcing this message through the power of the visual and the theatrical, the production's intensity clearly fueled by the current events of warfare. With the opera choir placed behind them, the soloists performed on the front of the stage. Ricklin also added a (non-singing) child actor (Daniel Cohen). Present on the stage throughout, the boy symbolizes the children who have perished in war. 

 

Ricklin divides the parts of the two male singers among six men. Taking on the roles of both soldiers and civilians, they add a broader dramatic sweep to the concert version. (Eric Greene, for example, takes on the role of a grave digger.) The male singers portrayed Owen's dark texts with involvement and articulate diction; to mention some items sung by them: "Be slowly lifted up" (Yair Polishook), "Bugles sang" (Eric Greene), "Move him" (Peter Wedd), "What passing bells" (Anthony Webb) and "After the blast" (Oded Reich). One of the work's most unheralded and moving moments occurs in the setting of a poem Owen titled "Strange Meeting", in which, in a dark, irreverent afterlife, a puzzled young soldier, either dying or dead, meets a soldier from the enemy “side”, to bring about a poignant, understated reconciliation: “I am the enemy you killed, my friend." (Aaron Blake, Oded Reich). As to Britten's single soprano role, Ricklin engages two singers, creating two very different roles: clad in white, the angel, representing compassion, was performed superbly by Alla Vasilevtsky, a singer of strong stage presence. Her singing of the Lacrimosa was as fragile as it was heart-rending. No less impressive, Shaked Strul, portraying the wretched status of the female war victim, gave an impassioned performance, spending much of the time grovelling on the floor before finally dying. Her treatment of the ominous Libera me solo was gripping and disturbing. 

 

The Tel Aviv Opera Hall was plunged into darkness. Lighting effects were apt, never excessive. As the performance proceeded, six graves opened up on stage - a chilling sight - as each, in turn, claimed its victim. At one point, via the aisle in the choir area, a corpse, covered with a white sheet, was wheeled through to the front of the stage. Was this shocking sight one gesture too many? Taking on the merging of the great liturgy and the personal anguish of one poet-soldier, Maestro Alexander Joel, in his Israeli Opera debut, brought all the forces together with conviction and impressive articulacy. Britten's marvellous orchestration resounded in all its timbral interest, symbolism, fantasy and impact. The Israeli Opera chorus gave precise and powerful expression to the work's stark soundscape. As to the young members of the Moran Children's Choir, they met the score's challenges admirably, singing with clarity and competence. Spatially and emotionally removed from the intensity of the work's other agendas, producing a very strange, distant sound, they presented their texts with the naivete of children untouched by earthly grief, guilt or fear. Yet, at its conclusion, we are left with the discomfort of the War Requiem's dual ending, as the children sing the tritone and the choir resolves it with an F- major chord.

 

At the head of his score Britten quotes the words with which Owen prefaced his poems:

"My subject is War, and the pity of War.
       The poetry is in the pity.
       All a poet can do is warn."

 

 

Ido Ricklin (israeli-opera.co.il)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A NEW SONG, HALLELUJAH - Assaf Bènraf directs the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, choirs and soloists in the festive opening of the 2024 Hallelujah Festival

Irena Svetova (Courtesy IS)

 

Maestro Assaf Bènraf (Uri Elkayam)

Eliyahu Svetov (Courtesy ES)

Drawing a large audience to the Henry Crown Auditorium of the Jerusalem Theatre on November 30th, "A NEW SONG, HALLELUJAH" was the opening event of the 2024 Hallelujah Festival. Under the baton of Assaf Bènraf, a string ensemble of players of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the A-Capella Vocal Ensemble Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir and Valery Oleshko (piano/organ) were joined by soloists Rinatya Nessim (soprano) and Eliyahu Svetov (piano/organ).. 

 

"Alleluia" - so many composers have set this word’s four syllables, playing with its vowel colours, its lightweight consonants and the endless possibilities of word stress, rhythm, and meaning. In "Alleluia" (1940), American composer Randall Thompson's best-known work, the composer steers away from the word's celebratory connotations. Deeply affected by events in Europe, particularly by the fall of France, Thompson takes inspiration for the piece from the Book of Job. Opening the event with this work, Bènraf led the two choirs and organ (Oleshko) through the work's journey of emotions - from reverence, introspection, uncertainty and anxiety to exuberant hope, before ending in a tranquil allusion to peace. In performance that was lush, velvety and beautifully blended, Thompson's choral meditation on a single word - "Alleluia" - followed by a simple "Amen", was moving, indeed mystical.

 

Francis Poulenc's "Gloria" FP 177, here accompanied on the piano (Oleshko), never fails to raise a few questions as a sacred work. Bènraf and his singers dealt admirably with its challenges - namely, the contrast of moods and gestures - as they effectively and articulately captured its buoyant, celebratory spirit, indeed, its eccentric nature. One could discern elements from jazz, dance, reference to earlier French composers such as Fauré, as well as elements of sardonic humour. Even the peaceful serenity of the work's radiant closing pages is disturbed by one last, loud interjection at the first "Amen". Renatya Nessim's performance of the solos was unforced, her mellifluous voice well projected, weaving melodies gracefully, negotiating the tricky, unconventional leaps of the “Domine Deus” with poise.

 

Enter ten string players of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. They played W.A.Mozart's Divertimento in D major, K.136, a fine example of the 16-year-old composer's sophisticated craftsmanship in a genre traditionally defined and designated as "light" music. Performing with suave good taste, transparency, charm and a touch of Haydnesque humour, the instrumentalists invited the audience to join them at a musical soirée in the home or gardens of one of Salzburg's leading residents, for which events Mozart composed and frequently performed. 

 

Then, to the second movement (Larghetto) of Frederic Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 in f minor, Op.21, with Eliyahu Svetov as soloist. A nocturne in the "stile brillante" tradition, Svetov gave the stage to Chopin's virtuosic writing for the piano, its style a reminder that Chopin himself was a brilliant improviser. The soloist brought out the composer's ravishing ornamenting of the filigree-fine melodies with elegance, shape and shimmering delicacy. Composed shortly before Chopin left Poland, the movement was inspired by Konstancja Gładkowska, a young soprano with whom he claimed to be in love, but was too shy to tell. This was followed by Mozart's "Ave verum corpus" in D major K.618 for mixed choir, strings and organ. Under the baton of Maestro Bènraf, the motet's serene, unhurried, homophonic fabric (46 measures in all!) emerged in a fine blend of subtlety, luminosity, balance, precision and restraint.

 

Concluding the concert of high-quality performance was the Israeli premiere of Irena Svetova's 2014 setting of Psalm 33 "Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous", performed by the joint choirs, string players and piano. The work, modal, intense and engaging, displays the composer's insight into musical setting of the Hebrew language, its shapes and intonation, as the words flowed naturally through the weave of the score. Indeed, the singers gave articulate and transparent expression to her explicit and skilful choral writing. Notable also was some impressive writing for the piano (Svetov.)  Born in Moscow, Irena Svetova immigrated to Israel in 1991.

Gideon (Gidi) Meir performs organ works of Buxtehude, J.S.Bach, Sweelinck and Byrd at the Brigham Young University, Jerusalem Center

 

Gideon Meir (Alexander Kotov)

The auditorium of the Brigham Young University, Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, boasts one of the city's finest pipe organs. It was built by Marcussen & Søn (a Danish family business of pipe organ builders established in 1806) and was inaugurated in 1987. The largest pipe organ in the Middle East, it has 3,165 pipes. Contemporary in design, the horizontal reed pipes on the front of the case add interest and beauty to the instrument. Performing a program on the BYU organ on November 24th 2024, Gideon (Gidi) Meir dedicated the recital to the memory of his father 'cellist Menachem Meir (1924-2024) and to that of his organ teacher David Boe (1936-2020).

 

Dieterich Buxtehude's reputation as a composer lies mostly in his compositional oeuvre for the organ. Indeed, he was the greatest precursor to J.S. Bach as a composer for organ, and had a far-reaching influence on the generation to come, especially on Bach himself. With Buxtehude's Praeludium in G minor, Bux WV149 issued in with a bright, flamboyant flourish in the manuals and bolstered from the seventh bar by the pedals’ obsessive seven-note phrase, Gidi Meir got the evening's music off to an exuberant start. Proceeding on from this combination of ostinato and stylus phantasticus (Buxtehude's predilection for the stylus phantasticus demands much interpretative freedom on the part of performers) the work presents two fugues with related subjects: the first, solemn, played mainly in the manuals, the second an affective fuga pathetica in slow triple meter. Played here in full registration, the Praeludium culminates in a free coda. Addressing one of Buxtehude’s most frequently performed works, Meir highlighted the prelude's sophistication and complexity.

 

We then heard two (of the countless) settings of John Dowland's most famous "ayre" (originally a solo song with lute accompanied) "Flow My Tears", composed in 1596 under the name "Lachrimae pavane". In his setting of it, Dutch composer/organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (referred to as the “Orpheus of Amsterdam") does little more than transcribe for a different instrument material borrowed from his British contemporary, here and there embellishing and elaborating the original. Ornamenting the repeats, Meir chooses bright, even clamorous timbres. Of all the keyboard arrangements of this work, Dowland's "greatest hit", William Byrd’s is one of the finest and certainly among the most imaginative. The ample pavan framework invites Byrd (and the performer) to indulge in inventive figuration, extensive elaboration of the melody and to revel in its contrapuntal layering. A change of meter creates a whole different atmosphere. As to Byrd's departure from the model, Meir's solid, hearty reading brings to light elements of the original harmonic agenda. For the Dowland settings, Meir engaged the swell to create a lush, velvety, Renaissance-type sound.

 

The thread running through Gidi Meir's recital (indeed, running through a large portion of organ repertoire) was the use of melodies and hymns, some ancient, on which to build works, in particular, for chorale preludes and variations. In addition to some twenty preludes, Buxtehude's many surviving organ compositions include a large number of chorale preludes and variations on Lutheran chorale melodies. Of the latter genre, "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" ("Christ our Lord came to the Jordan") based on a hymn by Martin Luther (1541), its text telling of Christ's baptism, has been set into many musical compositions. Here, in one of Buxtehude's most uplifting chorale settings, Meir uses a strongly projected and majestic approach, the registrations fitting the piece splendidly. J.S.Bach's chorale arrangement of "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" brims with effervescence. As the chorale melody emerges in long notes in the pedal, the ripples of the Jordan River are evoked in fast notes over two keyboards. The latter scoring would have been unconventionally different to  Bach's audience! 

 

With Advent in western churches beginning on the Sunday nearest to November 30th, Meir chose two settings of the Martin Luther chorale "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" (Now come, Saviour of the heathens). In Buxtehude's setting of the Bux WV211 chorale, the stately, full-bodied accompaniment supporting an ornamented setting of the melody evokes the solemnity of the season of Advent; it concludes with a flourish, as typical of chorale preludes of the period. Meir's performance of it reflects the radiance and depth evident in Buxtehude's organ works. J.S.Bach's working of the same chorale (BWV 659) is one of the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, BWV 651–668, all characterized by the composer's long, freely written episodes between cantus firmus lines. Above the slow-stepping walking bass in the pedal, we hear an alluring, highly ornamented soprano line carrying the chorale melody, the piece evoking the mystical expectation of the incarnation.

 

The program concluded on an ebullient note with the chorale prelude "Gott der Vater wohn’ uns bei" (God, the Father, stay with us). Formerly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach as BWV 748, researchers now claim it was composed by Johann Gottfried Walther, a scholar, accomplished performer and composer. Born one year before Bach, Walther struck up a friendship with Bach – his second cousin – in 1708, a friendship that inspired him to set over 130 chorale preludes and variations on Lutheran chorale melodies. Creating a rich, bright, reedy soundscape, Meir saw the work as a counter-piece to the opening Buxtehude Praeludium.

 

For his encore, Meir chose to play Sweelinck's Variations on "Unter der Linden Grüne" (Under the Linden Green), an example of the composer’s mastery in the art of variation and in his writing for the organ. Displaying Sweelinck's characteristic sense of humour, the melody used was one popular in Holland in Sweelinck’s time. The jolly variations offered Meir multiple opportunities to display the Marcussen organ's variety and the beauty of its many flute- and reed stops. Adding a touch of magic to the final variation, he activated the organ's Zimbelstern stop, (a “toy” stop consisting of a metal or wooden star or wheel on which several small bells are mounted. When the stop is engaged, the star rotates, producing a continuous tinkling sound.) Meir felt this sparkling timbre reflected the night scenery as seen by the audience through the auditorium's large, scenic front window. Interestingly, the performer seated at the Marcussen organ was also reflected in the window!

 

Gideon Meir has spent much time familiarizing himself with this particular organ and choosing a program that would be suited to it, to the hall and to the time of year. The recital was inspired and uplifting.

 

Organ of the BYU auditorium.Spanish trumpets on view