(Members
of the Playhouse Chorale)
The Playhouse Company is bringing back
Handel’s Messiah for an Easter Sunday matinee performance on April 1 at 15h00.
Directed by theatre luminary Ralph Lawson, the Company’s grandly staged
production in Durban’s Opera Theatre features popular soloists, Khumbuzile
Dhlamini (soprano), Violina Anguelov (mezzo), Thabiso Masemene (tenor) and
Aubrey Lodewyk (baritone), with the 40-strong Playhouse Chorale and members of
the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, performing under the baton of English
conductor, Tim Murray.
“Our seasonal production of Handel’s Messiah has long been one of the
highlights of The Playhouse Company’s annual arts programme,” says the
Company’s Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Linda Bukhosini. “It is always
a profound joy for us to present this universally-loved work, both as a
performance showcase for the wealth of vocal talent we are proud to nurture,
and as a means of uniting our disparate community audiences in a spirit of
faith and harmony through music as a universal language.”
Director Ralph Lawson shares his thoughts
about this staging of the great work, which has become the world’s most
frequently performed choral masterpiece since it was performed in Dublin in
April 1742.
“It's wonderful to have the opportunity to
work on a semi-staged version of Messiah,
a work of genius that, on every hearing of it (even at rehearsal), bestows a
glow of marvellous well-being. The thing that appeals to me most about the work
and which I'm trying to bring out in the staging of it, is Handel's humanity,
which really infuses the work and makes a version like this possible.
“He was, we are told, profoundly generous
and donated regularly to retired musicians, to orphans and to the ill. He gave
some of the proceeds from the debut performance to a debtors' prison and a
hospital in Dublin. His annual benefit concerts always included Messiah and proceeds went to his
favourite charity, a home for abandoned children called the Foundling Hospital
in London. And he left the bulk of his considerable estate to charity and to
his servants.
“This quality imbues the work, and, in
directing it, I've sought to bring it out through the singers’ approach to the
text - in other words, to get them to engage emotionally with it rather than
reproduce it somewhat technically as they might do in a conventional oratorio
performance. For unlike his great contemporary, Bach, whose oratorios exalted
God, Handel wrote about human beings' response to God. In this way he can
really lift the spirits, because he is writing about human beings for human
beings. Small wonder that Beethoven considered Handel ‘the greatest composer
that ever lived.
“It's really inspiring to work hand-in-hand
with our conductor, Tim Murray, who is a Baroque music performance expert. He
and I see eye to eye about a number of things pertinent to the work - in this
case a fusion of what is known as ‘historically informed’ detail with the
strength and unique quality of our local voices. A lot of the musical dynamics
of the piece are later additions by editors and we're stripping these away to
get back to basics and ‘real’ meaning.
“Tim and I agree this combination of detail
with the strength and glorious sound of African voices is a really potent one.
We hope to give the piece a fresh dimension, while offering our audience the
traditional Messiah experience which
is so much part of what Easter is all about.”
Joining the conversation, conductor Tim
Murray adds: “One of my formative musical experiences as a boy chorister was
singing Messiah on tour in Holland with
the Hannover Band, conductor Roy Goodman and a wonderful group of soloists. It
was the late 1980s, and the historically informed style, on original
instruments, was long-established, yet in the context of an old-fashioned
British choir school it still had a somewhat radical edge. I will never forget
the sound of those performances: so fresh, vibrant and alive. Cobwebs well and
truly blown away.
“Fast forward thirty years and I am still
on tour! As Associate Music Director of Cape Town Opera I am lucky enough to
work regularly with South African voices. Much of the wonderful choral
tradition of this country has its origin in oratorio singing, so it’s a
particular pleasure to come back to Messiah
and to see how these two ‘traditions’ can come together in the service of this
wonderful piece of music.”
One of the high points of Western music,
Handel’s Messiah score abounds with a
wealth of evergreen choral items. Among these are the magnificent Hallelujah Chorus, along with equally
splendid numbers such as For Unto Us A
Child Is Born, And The Glory of the Lord and many more, as well as
benchmark solos such as Every Valley, He
Was Despised, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings
To Zion, Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion, The Trumpet Shall Sound and Why Do The Nations So Furiously Rage
Together, to name but a few.
Messiah takes place at 15h00 on April 1 in
the Playhouse Opera. Booking is through Computicket outlets nationwide. Tickets
from R110 and R130. Call 0861 915 8000 or book online at www.computicket.com.
Alternatively call Playhouse Box Office on 031 369 9540 (office hours).
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