Cultures collide in rhythmic 'La Pasion': Listeners are swept into a hypnotic world of Latin joy, despair

By David Stabler
For the Oregonian

The nearly naked figure of Jesus stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Behind him, a noisy chorus of conga drums, maracas, trumpets and singers buoyed him in a swaying beat of Brazilian rhythms. 
Jesus staggered again, but this time, a mambo caught him, the trumpets and trombones rising higher and higher until the stage rocked to the beat. Jesus may have been making his way to the Crucifixion, but it sounded like it was taking place during a Latin street festival.

The effect was as sharp and visceral as the slap of a drum.

Rarely do cultures collide with such power as they do in "La Pasion Segun San Marcos" ("The Passion According to St. Mark") by the Argentine composer Oswaldo Golijov. The music, which re-enacts the story of Jesus' Passion, ranges over several lands -- Africa, Spain, Cuba and Brazil -- and it is loud, colorful and rhythmically irresistible.

An enthusiastic crowd of kids, parents and the simply curious witnessed "La Pasion" on opening night of the Oregon Bach Festival in Silva Hall on Thursday, jumping to its feet with cheers and whistles. It was a special event for the 36-year-old festival, which traditionally presents mainstream European works under the baton of artistic director Helmuth Rilling, the German Bach expert. The fabulous Venezuelan choir, Schola Cantorum de Caracas, was on hand, as were Latin and South American dancers and singers and a Boston-based group of musicians called Orquestra La Pasion.

From the first scene of a fisherman dancing slow circles under a net, "La Pasion" swept listeners into a hypnotic world of Latin joy and despair. The choir, dressed in loose white shirts and trousers, chanted, snarled, swayed and moaned. A jazz singer wailed and yipped her pain as the story unfolded in 12 narrative sections. A break dance erupted to a driving percussive beat. And when the agonizing moment of Christ's walk to the Crucifixion arrived -- a moment that Bach and previous composers traditionally reduce to a hushed and halting lament -- a thunder of drums, brass and song broke loose.

This is how Bach might have sounded if he had been born in Latin America in the 20th century.

The roots of "La Pasion" are visible even to casual listeners of Golijov's music. At 44, he is one of the most successful boundary jumpers in classical music today. His frequent collaborations with the groundbreaking Kronos Quartet have led to film scores for Francis Ford Coppola and Sally Potter ("Orlando").

Raised in an Eastern European Jewish household near Buenos Aires, Golijov seems an unlikely choice for a work that is central to Christianity. But his outsider status is precisely what got him the job to write "La Pasion" in 2000. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death, Rilling asked four of the world's leading composers to retell the story of Christ's Passion. Bach had written powerful Passions himself, and by commissioning living composers to follow in the same tradition, Rilling was requesting vivid re-imaginings.

He got them. The Oregon Bach Festival performed Tan Dun's thrilling "Water Passion," one of the commissioned Passions, in 2002. The festival also wanted to present Golijov's "Pasion" at that time, but costs were prohibitive. Only when the money was in hand -- close to $200,000 for two performances -- did the festival feel the time was right, this year.

"La Pasion" uses texts from St. Mark's Gospel, Old Testament psalms and Latin American poetry. St. Mark's is the most straightforward and compressed of the four gospels, and Golijov's music, despite its variety, moves swiftly along, borne by the drummers.

One moment that stood out among many was a gently rocking aria that Peter sings on the night he forsakes Jesus, to the words of a Galacian poem. Here, Peter is a woman, and soloist Samia Ibrahim spun a beautiful web of sound. Lucian Souza, a Brazilian jazz singer, was equally mesmerizing. 
But the real stars were the chorus and Maria Guinand, the conductor.

The 45 Venezuelan singers, who premiered the work in Germany in 2000, faced one another across the stage and sang the difficult syncopations expertly, whether contorting their mouths to snarl insults or keening in earthy chest voices. And Guinand was a marvel to watch, particularly her expressive hands, as she commanded myriad instrumentalists, singers and soloists.

Bach couldn't have dreamed of such a work, but he would certainly have appreciated its beauty and power.

David Stabler: 503-221-8217; davidstabler@news.oregonian.com