Not quite Requiem, not quite a success for TSO experiment
Mozart’s Requiem: Toronto Symphony Orchestra
(out of 4)
Bernard Labadie (conductor), Joel Ivany (stage director), Amadeus Choir & Elmer Iseler Singers, Lydia Adams (artistic director). At Roy Thomson Hall, Jan. 21.
The much anticipated semi-staged performance of Mozart’s Requiem is exactly the type of grey area that Against The Grain Theatre’s Joel Ivany has made a career of exploring.
While it is nothing new for the opera world to explore semi-staged productions, the orchestra world has been focused on the business of performing music to the highest degree. But one hopes the role of the orchestra in the 21st century is more than a musical mummifier, preserving composers in golden amber. Let’s make some new memories, rather, and Mozart’s Requiem was the ticket last night.
To understand the Requiem is to understand where the drama comes from. Other than grief, the text carries no real narrative on its own.
Visually, we can watch the conductor physically cajole the music into life and admire the facial winces of soloists reaching for musical perfection.
Musically, the orchestra, choir and soloists break hearts with devastating refrains. Beyond the music, the difficulty comes from trying to convey a specific message that aligns with subjective nature of mourning.
So, let’s choreograph Mozart’s mass and see what happens.
As a procession of performers walked down the aisles, the larghetto from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet played quietly from the stage. One by one, they paused in front of shallow wooden plinths to gently lean in and place white cards on top.
Each member of the audience was also given white cards along with their programmes, prompting many to wonder what they were for.
“For breaking down the fourth wall,” I imagined Joel Ivany saying from my seat as the introitus wobbled up from the stage like heat from a tarmac.
Soloists were draped over clawback chairs onstage, and held their heads low, as Mozart’s beautiful nightmare unfolded.
Conductor Bernard Labadie, also seated, kept the pace taut and the dynamics fluid. Amadeus Choir & Elmer Iseler Singers, under the direction of Lydia Adams, sang the entire work by memory, which kept them inside of the performance for the entire run. Their voices were divine, but the choreography proved problematic. The choreographed gestures were overly simplistic, and included writing, reaching and holding. The effect created a literal connection to the text that trifled against the Requiem’s fretful emotions.
The soloists were well cast, and for ensemble numbers, blended beautifully. The two highlights were bassbaritone Philippe Sly and soprano Lydia Teuscher.
Only in his twenties, Sly’s voice pulled forward from the thick hues of voices filling the hall. Teuscher’s voice was warm and glorious, and came effortlessly. Allyson McHardy held court with a gilded mezzo-soprano tone that has set her apart from her contemporaries. Tenor Frédéric Antoun was technically impressive, but I found his voice thin, especially on the longer syllables.
While this experiment didn’t succeed the way I had hoped, it certainly broke new ground. The TSO is on a path toward innovation, and along that path, everything won’t always land on two feet.
Not really theatre. Not really a symphony performance. Not really Mozart’s Requiem, either.