Reviews

Two music groups shine at Zilkha Hall
By CHARLES WARD
2002 Houston Chronicle

The builders of the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts intended Zilkha Hall, the more intimate of the complex's two theaters, to be a place for Houston's smaller performing arts groups to show off.

If they can match and build on Sunday's ambitious debut by the Houston Chamber Choir and Ars Lyrica Houston, the city's arts scene will get a big shot in the arm.

Several things made the evening notable. First was a chance to hear Henry Purcell's rarely performed operatic masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas , most famous for its last aria, Dido's lament When I am laid in earth .

The collaboration was a significant foray into downtown by the city's burgeoning early-music scene, which seems on the cusp of major growth. And the evening was produced completely with local talent -- choir, vocal soloists, instrumentalists, choreographer and stage personnel.

But it was the music-making that counted.

When Robert Simpson, the choir's music director, gave the downbeat to the opening work, Handel's florid setting of Dixit Dominus (The Lord Said), the voices and period instruments exploded with crackling energy.

Simpson drew strong, well-blended and tonally satisfying singing from the choir during its sections of Dixit Dominus , a seven-movement treatment of Psalm 110 that was Handel's most extensive piece of Latin church music. (Choir members sang the solo movements with variable success.)

With the violins and viola standing on the partially raised pit in period style, the 10 members of Ars Lyrica added a stylish, generally well-polished accompaniment. The lean, soft sound -- especially in the solo movements -- was a handsome addition.

With Ars Lyrica founder Matthew Dirst leading from the harpsichord, Dido and Aeneas almost equalled the impressive production of Handel's oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verita (The Triumph of Time and Virtue) that he produced in April at the University of Houston.

Premiered sometime during the 1680s, Dido and Aeneas is a pithy treatment of the story found in Virgil's Aeneid .

Dido, the Queen of Carthage, is falling in love with Aeneas, the Trojan prince who was shipwrecked there. With some doubts, she agrees to marry him.

But she suspects that his love is fleeting -- and a Sorcerer proves her right by persuading Aeneas to follow the command of Jove and leave Carthage.

In their final meeting, Dido spurns Aeneas' last-minute offer to stay and takes a fatal poison.

Fortunately, Simpson and Dirst chose soprano Melissa Givens to sing Dido. With simple spirit, elegant presence and excellent singing, she created a soft but cutting image of a woman torn up by love.

Soprano Nancy Curtis gave a sharp profile to Dido's sister Belinda, singing with an attractive but oversized agility. Mezzo-soprano Dawn Padula snarled and vamped as the Sorceress. Tenor Eduardo Tercero was Aeneas.

Enlarged by UH's Collegium Musicum, the onstage choir and (seated) 13-member orchestra provided vivid accompaniment.

Stage director Roger Keele suggested time and space with costumes and a few props, such as branches the choir held to denote the grove where Dido and Aeneas are entertained following a hunt. Yvonne Kendall added simple but sprightly dances.

A few things disappointed. Staging continued full tilt during Dido's final lament, undercutting its dramatic impact. It's Dido's final turn, and nothing should detract from it.

Lighting was minimal and ineffective, as if the producers had run out of time, and the use of a wooden orchestra shell as a backdrop detracted from the mood.

There will be a second chance to catch the show at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 31 in the University of Houston's Moores Opera House, the acoustically excellent model for Zilkha Hall.

Charles Ward, Copyright 2002, Houston Chronicle

" Several surprises jumped out at the American premiere of Handel's oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità (The Triumph of Time and Virtue) at the University of Houston. The dominant one Monday at the Moores Opera House was the felicity of so much of the music in what could have been a deadly format. Aria followed recitative a couple of dozen times, leavened only by an occasional sinfonia or chorus. But rarely was there a long, dull stretch. In fact, it was one beauty after another, almost all filled with gripping musical character and linked to its neighbors by carefully calibrated emotional contrasts.

All the music was delivered well by the 14 student singers of the UH Collegium Musicum, who shared the four principal roles. The professional members of Ars Lyrica Houston, a period instruments ensemble, played the accompaniment with verve and style.

The production assembled by conductor Matthew Dirst and director Roger Keele entertainingly served up the static story of the allegory. Simple movement, handsome costuming and astute lighting gave life to the dilemma faced by the character Beauty: buffeted by Time and Truth, she must decide whether to follow the siren call of Pleasure. Sobriety wins. She chooses to accept the reality that she will not always be young and beautiful.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità  was Handel's first revision of his first oratorio. The original premiered in 1707 in Rome but for the revival three decades later, he made substantial alterations to accommodate the more sober sensibility of his London audience. They weren't enough to warrant calling the revival a new work but they were more than just the minor tinkerings encountered later in Messiah. A new performing edition of that 1737 version became available to Dirst -- hence, the premiere.

Well into the work, one of those Handelian shocks appeared. Pleasure -- sung dashingly by Eduardo Tercero at this point in the production -- launched into some familiar-sounding music. His Lascia la spina was an early version of the more famous aria Lascia ch'io pianga in the 1711 opera Rinaldo (which also has two versions). In true Handelian form, both came from an instrumental piece Handel wrote in Hamburg in 1704.

Just as important as the delicious evening's entertainment, and the introduction to some fine music, Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità was a reminder that the city still awaits a major, resident professional producer of Baroque and early Classical music and theater. The production showed that the artistic imagination is here. The catalyst to put it together hasn't shown up yet."

Charles Ward, Copyright 2002, Houston Chronicle

" . . Dirst, the director, the designer and the students should be proud of what they did. They presented a touchingly simple and moving musical work that has rarely, if ever, been heard in Houston. They conveyed its essential beauty, joy and pathos well . . . They demonstrated that, for the first time, the interest and capability exist locally to produce Baroque theater works in period style. Previously, only visiting ensembles have done that." -- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle (3 December 1997)

"Practically speaking, the music of 17th-century Europe has disappeared from Houston's concert life . . Matthew Dirst and the University of Houston Collegium Musicum showed that we are the poorer for it with an excellent program that concluded the Round Top Festival's 12th annual early music weekend . . . Dirst, a UH musicologist, infused the instrumental introduction [to Lully's Atys ] with the sort of phrasing that made the afternoon's music-making so enjoyable: supple, sinuous and sometimes sensuous . . .The musicality of their work was constantly enjoyable . . . A bove all, I will remember the variety of emotions expressed through such simple means." -- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle (27 May 1998)

"The evening showed that skilled performers, committed to Baroque music and early music in general, are now becoming part of the city's musical scene . . .
      . . the spare movement and sharp changes of lighting, especially to red as the blood flowed, were excellent complements to the fine singing of tenor Randolph Lacy (the narrator) and the well-paced accompaniment . .
      . . with guest soprano Patti Spain, these [madrigals] were examples of exquisite music at its purest . .
      . . I suspect that as Dirst's program at UH and his other projects in the city show the richness and rewards of Baroque literature, he will begin to attract a full range of singers for both solos and ensembles.
      More delightful evenings of the Baroque are surely ahead." -- Charles Ward, Houston Chronicle (3 December 1998)