Tan's passion keeps Bach Festival fresh

By David Stabler
From The Oregonian

EUGENE -- After the thunder and shouting stopped and the drums fell silent, Tan Dun's "Water Passion" ended with the echo of water drops.

Ploploploplop. Plop. Plop. Plop. Silence enveloped the inky darkness of Silva Hall.

Then pandemonium erupted as 2,000 listeners stood and cheered for Tan's thrilling religious drama, a retelling of the passion story of Christ. The work for chorus, water-percussion instruments and strings combines chant, electronic sampling, liquid percussion effects and high vocal drama in a series of ritualistic scenes that create an immediate and visceral effect on the listener.

For the 32-year-old Oregon Bach Festival, "Water Passion" is not only the summer sensation, it is also the kind of adrenaline jolt that keeps this festival among the liveliest in the country.

Tan's piece stands on the shoulders of Johann Sebastian Bach, who in the 18th century composed two of the most profound passions in Western music: the St. John and the St. Matthew passions.

In 2000, the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, Germany, commissioned Tan and three other composers from widely separate cultures to write new passions to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death. The other composers are Germany's Wolfgang Rihm, Russia's Sophia Gubaidulina and Argentina's Osvaldo Golijov. Friday's performance of "Water Passion" was its U.S. premiere.

Tan, the Academy Award-winning composer of the score to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," said he was struck by references to water as he read Matthew. He has retold the last days of Christ's life using water as a metaphor for the Christian symbols of baptism, renewal and resurrection.

Seventeen translucent water bowls, lighted from below, sat on the stage on pedestals, in the shape of a cross. Percussionists David Cossin, Charles Dowd and Gordon Rencher stood at three points of the cross, splashing their hands in the bowls and tapping submerged gongs and overturned bowls. Microphones amplified the sounds. Rippled reflections played on the ceiling overhead.

The chorus, dressed in black, sat on risers and sang, chanted, whispered and shouted. They also tapped bells and stones they had been asked to gather from favorite places: hiking trails, riverbanks, beaches.

Two vocalists, the superb bass Stephen Bryant and the bell-clear soprano Elizabeth Keusch, sang the roles of Jesus, the devil, Peter and others. Violinist Todd Reynolds and, particularly, new-music cellist Maya Beiser, unleashed fluid sounds both eerie and rapturous in their continuous commentaries.

Tan stood quietly at center stage, a lean, elegant conductor whose spare hand gestures drew whispers and roars from the forces before him.

He is a composer of opposites: East and West, Buddhism and Christianity, ritual and avant-garde, pop and classical. In his earlier music, including the high-profile opera "Marco Polo" in New York and "Symphony 1997," which Yo-Yo Ma premiered to mark Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China, Tan makes old instruments sound new and new instruments sound old. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," while not his best score, contains arresting cello solos, but the music relies a bit too heavily on bland, pop-infused moodiness for effect.

That's why I had my doubts about "Water Passion." Tan, who has a reputation for self-promotion, has been accused of gimmickry and commercialism in some of his splashy international projects.

But the arrival of one moment relieved my fears of a culture clash in "Water Passion." It was the scene in which the chorus jeers Jesus, taunting him as the "King of the Jews." Three sets of timpani pounded a threatening tattoo as chorus members shouted "Kill him!" and the lights burned blood red. Christ spoke his last plea, and a hail of shouts and thunder sheets shook the hall.

At that instant, I heard Bach's choruses shouting in my ear, too, and I sensed the historical echo between Tan and Bach, between a Chinese Buddhist and a German Lutheran, separated by 250 years but united by a powerful spirituality.

The quiet moments felt honest, too. Cossin, the chief percussionist, gave a wondrous performance of taps and gurgles with two tumblers, and, later, a long cylinder he submerged in the water.

After the passion's climax, the music ended with a smooth-surfaced coda. The chorus walked to the bowls and quietly splashed in the water. One woman, recalling Mary's sacred gesture, bent over and wet her hair.

Redemption sounded like a drop of water.

You can reach David Stabler at 503-221-8217 or by e-mail at davidstabler@news.oregonian.com