Michael Dungan reviews NCC, RTÉCO/Wagner at the Mahony Hall in The Helix, Dublin.
Haydn - The Creation.
Haydn first heard Messiah and other great oratorios by Handel during visits to London in 1791 and 1794. Excited as much by London's thriving Handel tradition - more than 30 years after the composer's death - as by the music itself, Haydn was inspired to write an oratorio of his own, something he hadn't attempted in 20 years. The result was The Creation, an account of "the beginning" based on Genesis and Milton's Paradise Lost.
This nexus of the spirits of Handel and Haydn was vividly evoked by conductor Laurent Wagner with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and the National Chamber Choir in Thursday night's performance at The Helix.
Wagner's lean and lively direction and the bright, crisp responses of his players gave a fresh, period sound to a work sometimes encumbered with tenacious romantic performance traditions dating back to the 19th century.
Wagner's more streamlined view was clear from the outset. In the initial, highly atmospheric orchestral depiction of pre-Creation "Chaos", the sound was dark yet propelled by an insistent forward energy. Other instances of Haydn's sound-painting - for example of rain, snow, winds, storms and the sea - likewise featured an understated approach that summoned the essence of what was being described instead of calling attention to the cleverness of the writing.
In the big, celebratory choruses, the National Chamber Choir's 17 voices were simply too few to do full justice to internal detail, this despite the obvious and otherwise successful efforts by Wagner to control balance.
In most other ways, however, the choir's contribution was first-rate, for instance in their confidence in fugal passages, in their relish for the German text, and in their overall espousal of Wagner's conception.
There was an excellent trio of soloists. For pure beauty of sound, tenor Robin Tritschler's searing account of the contrasting births of sun and moon was a highlight.
Bass Philip O'Reilly, as so often, fully inhabited his part, and ranged from majesty in his opening narration, to gentle humour in the subterranean bottom "D", which depicts the worm, to operatic tenderness in the exchanges between Adam and Eve. Matching both men for clarity and focus was soprano Rebecca Ryan who sang with warmth and delicacy, negotiating trills, tremolos and high notes with ease and zest.
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra continues its Spring Series at The Helix on Thursday nights in February.
