The College's Handel Society will perform Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Passion According to St. Matthew," a piece conductor Melinda O'Neal calls "transcendent music," Saturday and Sunday at the Hopkins Center.
The Handel Society, a group including College students and community members, will be joined under O'Neal's baton by the Hanover Chamber Orchestra, the Handel Society Children's Chorus, Cori Angelicum, a children's choir from Wellesley, Mass. and special guest soloists, two of whom are College alumni.
The last of his original extended works, "The St. Matthew Passion" was the second of Bach's two settings of gospel accounts of Christ's final days. Bach also wrote "The Passion According to St. John," which the Handel Society has performed.
The "St. Matthew Passion" has not been performed at the College since the 1940s, and O'Neal said she felt it was time for such a performance.
"The St. Matthew Passion" tells the story of Christ's last days through the music of two orchestras, two choruses and a secondary choir. It was first performed in 1727 at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig where Bach was employed as cantor.
Each part of the ensemble plays a crucial role in telling the story. The first orchestra and chorus represent participants at the time of the passion, and the second represent the faithful of Bach's time and today. Soloists play the role of the Evangelist, the narrator, and Jesus, Pontius Pilate, Peter and Judas. Solo arias, set to texts by Bach's favorite poet, Picander, are interspersed throughout the drama and reflect on the impact of the characters' actions.
"The work is an incredible one in its depth of emotional dimension -- bliss and despair, condemnation and salvation, tears of joy and painful scourging, being found and being lost, fear and peace," O'Neal said in the April edition of Handel Society Notes. "It is my hope that all of us together may open a window for each other and for our audiences through this work."
O'Neal said the power of the music goes beyond the question of believing the narration. "The music is so poignant and transcendent, whether you believe in the story or not is only one angle of it," she said.
O'Neal has been preparing the concert for over a year, starting with the selection of guest soloists. She said she is very excited about the performers, many from outside the state, coming to Hanover for the concert. Two of them, Jennifer C. Hansen '85 and Clifford Rust '86, are College alumni who were both members of the Handel Society as undergraduates.
Hansen, a mezzo-soprano from West Lebanon, will be singing the role of a witness, as well as arias. As a performer in choral societies in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, she has sung in Bach's "B Minor Mass," Mozart's "Requiem" and Handel's "Messiah," among others. She has performed opera with Opera North and Vermont Opera Theater, and was a New England finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Award auditions.
Rust, a baritone who will be performing the role of Jesus has performed as a recitalist in operas and in oratorios nationally and internationally. He is currently the general manager of The Boston Music Company. At the College, he won the Eugene Roitman award from the Music Department and was a member of the first Music Foreign Study Program.
Other guest soloists without College ties will also be featured. David B. Adams, a tenor from Brooklyn, New York, has performed with the Opera Orchestra of New York, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Santa Fe Opera. He has performed solos in Handel's "Messiah," Hayden's "Creation" and Rachmaninov's "Liturgy of St. John of Chrysostum." He will be performing the roles of a high priest and a witness.
Sharon Baker, a soprano from Durham, N.H., has performed solos from Bach's St. John Passion with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Mozart's "Requiem" with the National Symphony Orchestra and Bach's "B Minor Mass" at Lincoln Center. She performs regularly with Boston's Handel and Hayden Society, Boston Baroque and the Boston Cecilia Society.
Pamela Dellal, mezzo-soprano from Belmont, Mass., has sung at Lincoln Center's "Messiah" and has appeared as a soloist with Boston Baroque, the Boston Early Music Festival and Dallas Bach Society. She has also sung with the National Chamber Orchestra and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.
Also from Belmont, Mass., bass-baritone Paul Guttry has performed as a soloist with Emmanuel Music, Handel and Hayden Society, Boston Cecilia, and Boston Early Music Festival. He will be performing the role of Peter.
The soloists, along with the choruses and the orchestra, combine to make the "The St. Matthew Passion" a masterpiece to be appreciated on two levels- as a musical composition or a worshipful experience.
