PSO performs Haydn's Creation

[The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation on 2nd, 4th, and 5th October. This review is on the October 4th performance at Phoenix Symphony Hall.]

Few works in the entire repertory of Classical music have achieved such notoreity as Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation. Composed in 1796 during Haydn's most productive and famous years (The Creation was the first work to be published in two languages at the beginning, it was also written in German as Die Schöpfung), this oratorio explores the first days of earth as recorded in Genesis beginning with a musical representation of chaos up through the first few happy hours of Adam and Eve.

The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has just recently established itself as a master of large but nimble symphonic works under the batons of Robert Moody (who is now at the helm of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina and the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine) and present music director Michael Christie. But The Creation should not be regarded as a small chamber piece: it calls for full complements of strings, woodwinds, brass, and tympani as well as a chorus. Soloists Celena Shafer (soprano), Gregory Kunde (tenor), and Philip Cutlip (baritone) complete the ensemble for the performance.

The three soloists were on top of their game Saturday evening. Their dynamic with Maestro Christie was fantastic. They were free to add their own cadenzas whenever the parts fit and Christie was receptive to that. Their dynamic with each other in trio sections was sublime. Even with supertitles projected above the stage, hearing what they were singing was easy, despite being in the back of the house with a lot of coughing going on from my fellow concertgoers. Mr. Cutlip, playing the role of the angel Raphael, manipulated his voice to imitate the different things that were being created.

There were a couple of movements that Maestro Christie took simply too fast to accommodate the orchestra and chorus. Typically this was during some of the contrapuntal sections. A good example of this was during the finale to part II, "Achieved is the glorious work". Both the orchestra and the chorus were having difficulties keeping up with Christie's tempo. Articulation by the orchestra was sub-par and so was the chorus's diction. Having played and sung this movement, the proper articulation and diction conveys the jubilation that Creation is complete.

All in all, the PSO and the Symphony Chorus presented a tour de force and only further proved that Phoenix and the Southwest are incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic orchestra in the region. If I had to rate this, I would give it 8.3/10.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen