Oregon Bach Fest in Full Swing

By Wes Blomster
From MusicalAmerica.com

EUGENE, Oregon -- The Oregon Bach Festival is at once an all-star and no-star event. Into the former category falls the founding father, music director and chief conductor Helmuth Rilling, now in his 33rd season as chief architect of the 17-day festival and widely regarded as without peer among Bach specialists. (Rilling has recorded 172 Bach compact discs for Hännsler.)

Thomas Quasthoff is also a star; the German bass-baritone has made the OBF his U.S. home base since making his American debut here in 1995. And then there are the rising stars, such as Guy Few, the French-Canadian master of the Baroque trumpet. Indeed, Rilling assembles a roster of singers, instrumentalists, and teachers that make the OBF the envy of Bach enthusiasts everywhere. Among them this summer are German mezzo Ingeborn Danz, Danish organist Kristian Olesen, the Belgian early-music ensemble More Maiorum, keyboard authority Robert Levin, and American alto Marietta Simpson.

Jeffrey Kahane, the respected pianist-turned-conductor shares the podium with Rilling and has the stage to himself this season for a performance of the complete "Goldberg" Variations.

How, then, "no-star"?

A self-supporting program at the University of Oregon, the OBF is a community endeavor. Stars drop their egos at the door. Quasthoff, for example, is just another one of the guys, coaching American high-school students in the German Lied or sitting in the auditorium watching Rilling work with 42 young conductors on the "Christmas" Oratorio.

The isolation and immense natural beauty of Eugene also help define the relaxed atmosphere, as does an exemplary town-gown collaboration. The major events of the day are the festival's offerings: Rilling conducting the B Minor Mass, for example, and repeating Penderecki's "Credo," commissioned and premiered by the OBF in 1998. Despite its moniker, the OBF is committed to a mix of repertory. The 2002 season has featured Quasthoff in a recital of Schubert, Wolf, and Strauss and performances with orchestra of four Mozart arias and Bach's "Ich habe genug." Tan Dun's "Water Passion After St. Matthew," commissioned for Rilling's Stuttgart Bachakademie to celebrate Bach's 250th birthday in 2000, received its American premiere July 5. Essentially a work of music theater, "Passion" involves a chorus of 60, five instrumentalists (three percussionists, violin and cello), and two vocalists. Electronic processing is used throughout, as is a sizable amount of digital sampling, supplied on stage by Yaulin Chen.

Yet there is decidedly less here than meets the ear, a fact obscured by the staging's splendid visual effects. A total of 17 large, transparent bowls of water are illuminated from below; they form a cross, at the foot of which the conductor stands. The percussionists are stationed at its other ends; they dip their hands in the water, slap it and pour it from their hands. The effect is mesmerizing. The chorus sings shrouded in various levels of darkness, and the back wall of the stage changes color frequently. Only at the end of the work are all 17 bowls in use. The staging is masterfully lighted by Christien Methot.

The carefully choreographed movements of percussionists David Cossin and Gordon Rencher were superbly executed. Soprano Elizabeth Keusch sang with a voice seemingly without upper limits, and cellist Maya Beiser, with mane flowing, identified fully with the overall effect of the staging. (Both Keusch and Beiser are of the Ur-cast.)

The same mathematics apply to the content of what is perhaps best called "the show." Tan takes the bulk of his text from the Evangelist, adding his own suggestion that there is "a time to love, a time of peace, a time to dance, a time of silence."

Tan further conducted the Festival Orchestra in the "Crouching Tiger" Concerto, distilled from the Oscar-award-winning score of the same name, and two of his "Orchestral Theatre" pieces, on July 7. This observer attended from June 30-July 6. The festival runs through July 14.