Elijah rising

By Grant Menzies for The Register-Guard.

Sometimes you hear wags describe Felix Mendelssohn's 1846 oratorio "Elijah" as "too pretty and too much"; in truth, this enormous chunk of sacred music has more than its fair share of of beautiful vocal and orchestral writing.

On the other hand, "Elijah" is a work that, despite its size, in many ways is so far ahead of its time that we can never fail to find something contemporary in it. In fact, "Elijah" is very much a precursor to that other religious work that came a little too close to opera for the comfort of the humorless devout - Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem Mass, composed almost 30 years later.

Like Verdi's Requiem, "Elijah" still proves something that those sensitive to the poet's craft have never failed to appreciate: The Bible is so rich with such deeply moving language, it would be well nigh a crime to not set its words to as much great music as possible.

It should therefore come as no great surprise that Mendelssohn, one of the greatest musical poets of the 19th century, was able not only to appreciate this poetry but translate it into the wordless symbology of music.

Obviously, part of sharing the beauty of this work falls to the ensemble performing it; and for the Oregon Bach Festival's final concert of the season on Sunday at Silva Concert Hall, "Elijah" was performed (in German) by what can only be described as a dream team, starting with festival music director Helmuth Rilling and the Festival Orchestra.

Rilling clearly puts his money on the operatic attributes of this oratorio, and there are many: Elijah's ringing challenge to the priests of Baal to reveal their god, that he might have it out with Jehovah; the fire that descends from heaven, resolving any doubts as to which deity is in charge; the storming rains that, in answer to Elijah's prayers, drench the drought-parched land; Elijah's desert wanderings; and finally, his triumphant message and ascension to heaven in a chariot of fire. There is as much of the theatrical as the sacred in "Elijah," and Rilling heaped it on with vigor.

Replacing an ailing Thomas Quasthoff, German baritone Russell Braun, singing the part of Elijah, was everything the ear could desire - those who did not to buy tickets because the star they were expecting was indisposed missed hearing a performer every bit as impressive.

Braun's is a bright baritone, charged with dramatic power and lyric beauty, a voice with a brilliant tenor ring and exquisite attention to nuances of the German language. His "It is enough" was delivered as stirringly as any baritone aria of Verdi - imagine a vocal tour de force like the Count di Luna's "Il balen," albeit sung against a backdrop of Judean desert, and you get the idea.

Braun was well-matched by his fellow soloists. Singing the Widow and an Angel, soprano Elizabeth Keusch made up in silky surface tone what she lacked in depth. The latter was no problem for mezzo-soprano Susan Platts. As Jezebel and an Angel (an ironic pairing if there ever was one), Platts' warm and honied tone made a sweet prayer out of "O rest in the Lord"; her Jezebel was no cardboard villainess but angry for a good reason, even if she is on the losing side.

As Obadiah, tenor Lothar Odinius offered thrilling and silvery tone that rang to the back of the house.

The chorus is as responsible for making "Elijah" work as any of the soloists, and perhaps more so, considering how much of the oratorio is carried on its shoulders. The combined forces of the Gächinger Kantorei (founded by Rilling 50 years ago) and the Festival Chorus rose superbly to the occasion, delivering a performance made no less shapely by its stop-on-a-dime discipline.

When you feel that a 70-odd person chorus is singing not at you but directly to you, and expressing not just their own deepest emotions but getting inside you and resonating with yours, you know you are experiencing something quite extraordinary. Those last two words best sum up what we heard Sunday afternoon.

Grant Menzies is a Portland classical music writer.