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Permission is granted to print and distribute this review in any format.Requiem for Alfredo Silipigni
Jason Tramm and Coro Lirico in top form
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
By John HammelCoro Lirico, Jason C. Tramm (conductor), Valerie Bernhardt (soprano), Mariana Karpatova (mezzo-soprano), Theodore Chletos (tenor), Seth Keeton (bass-baritone). Giuseppe Verdi:Requiem. Dedicated to the memory of Mæstro Alfredo Silipigni. Presbyterian Church of Madison.
Verdi’s Requiem, composed in commemoration of the great Italian novelist, poet, and nationalist hero Alessandro Manzoni, and premiered on the first anniversary of Manzoni’s death on May 22, 1874, was expertly performed by Coro Lirico in memoriam to the recently departed mæstro Alfredo Silipigni, who was the founder and artistic director of the New Jersey State Opera until his untimely death. Mæstro Silipigni was a mentor to Coro Lirico’s current artistic director Jason Tramm, and Tramm gave homage to the memory of one of the opera world’s revered conductors.
Silipigni was a direct link to an intimately involved and incisive period of bel canto and verismo singing and performance style. He led the State Opera for over forty years out of Newark. His Carnegie Hall debut occurred at the age of 25 with the prestigious NBC Symphony Orchestra and he guested at major opera houses in England, Austria, Montréal, Mexico City and many other notable venues in various countries. In spite of his international standing, Silipigni based his career in New Jersey and brought some of the world’s most eminent singers to the Garden State’s stages, among them Franco Corelli, Birgit Nilsson, Licia Albanese, Anna Moffo, Carlo Bergonzi, Jorome Hines, and Placido Domingo. What was most impressive about Mæstro Silipigni was his unerring passion and feel for the *cantabile singing line, whether in the voice or through a player’s instrument and his nonpareil shaping of line and structure, qualities all too rare and sadly lacking in many conductors and performers today.
Jason Tramm’s leadership and conducting of Coro Lirico in this performance of the Verdi Requiem, shared many of the same qualities that made Silipigni such a highly admired rarity. Mr. Tramm’s overall handling of the chorus’s and orchestra’s line and phrasing was exemplary. From the Requiem’s opening hushed rising and falling motifs in the “Requiem æterna” to the satisfying recapitulation of its main theme, fugue, and concluding supplicatory prayer and assurance of salvation at the end of the work, Tramm projected a firmly committed and fully involved persona, sculpting beautiful architectural lines that crested and swelled within a dramatic framework of suppleness and driven energy.
Lirico Coro’s diction was superb and, along with their sense of balance and phrasing, this was some of the best singing I have ever heard from a live chorus. Mr. Tramm was able to extract the essence of this music from his choral and instrumental forces with a dramatic urgency and impetus that even in the quietest moments drove the music forward. His involvement with every nuance of the text was beyond reproach. This was conveyed and elicited from the chorus in great arching phrases that swelled and fell back beautifully. From the terrifying emotional swirling of the “Dies iræ” with its accompanying thunderbolts from the bass drum (truly startling in the fine acoustic of the Presbyterian Church of Madison), to the sweetly tender pleas of the “Salva me,” one was engulfed in this richest of musical worlds.
Mr. Tramm drew every emotional facet out of this complex score, and one was duly impressed not only by his chorus but also by the balance and shapeliness he extracted from the orchestra, on what was surely little rehearsal time. The rich sonorities and perfectly balanced fanfares from the trumpets in the “Sanctus” and “Benedictus,” along with the luminescence of the strings in the “Lux æterna” (Light eternal), was simply luscious — superb music making that was totally gratifying to the heart and ear.
This work could not help but be operatic in nature, due to the agnostic philosophical beliefs of Verdi, (beliefs that created charges of hypocritical blasphemy at the time of the Requiem’s public unveiling). Verdi was a consummate artist of the theater whose own strongly held convictions and dramatic sense enabled him to write one of, if not the most, singular work of its kind.
As usual Verdi demands great expression and range from his four soloists. All the voice parts have extreme technical and emotional demands. Ms. Bernhardt was easily the most satisfying solo artist of the evening with a round warm tone that was beautifully connected in line. She also provided the most gratifying emotional nuances to her singing and wonderful control of both her high and low registers. Her voice soared to full throttle when necessary, yet also supported the most gorgeous of pianissimos in the “Libera me.”
The other singers all displayed exacting professional tone and diction and worked especially well in ensemble. None seemed as fully committed or unafraid to “let it all hang out” to the same degree as Ms. Bernhardt, but there was absolutely nothing in their presentation to distract from the overall feeling that one was involved in an exhilarating musical experience.