An unnamed member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus tested positive for Covid Thursday morning, and reportedly sat out the performance. Pandemic? Endemic? No big deal? The ASO has canceled a lot of events during our endless global health crisis but, for now, the show will go on.
Despite the risks of high-velocity spittle and a cautionary tale a few weeks ago at the Boston Symphony, the ASO and its mighty Chorus performed Thursday in Symphony Hall in a program of captivating French classics. The ASO Chorus, as so often happens, was the radiant star of the evening.
At the top of the concert, a sultry, languid flute solo by Christina Smith opened Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” from 1894. Perhaps the first work of thoroughly musical modernism, it drops old notions of syntax, rhythm and directionality — beginning, middle, end — replaced by light and shadow and curvy, flowing lines, like rippling water. It creates a hazy, dreamy stillness that can bewitch the listener, much as Stéphane Mallarmé’s Symbolist poem inspired the composer, depicting a debauched faun and his after-lunch naptime fantasies.
ASO Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles, on the podium, has built his international reputation in part for his command of Wagner operas, which often explore the characters’ complex internal psychology while, musically, pushing familiar major-minor harmony almost to the breaking point. In “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” Runnicles didn’t see Debussy as a reaction against Wagner, but rather within the same orbit. His reading was not so much foggy and gossamer as moody, assertive and loud. We might describe his approach as “Debussy for people who love Wagner.”
Or perhaps the orchestra hadn’t quite warmed up yet. The sound and atmosphere was magnificently better for Debussy’s Nocturnes, three short symphonic poems, indescribably beautiful, that intoxicate the senses. “Nuage” is all cloudy impressions coming out of and into focus, as if painted turbulent shades of gray on gray. There might be a thunderstorm way off in the distance. Stabs of light and color almost pierce the mists. It’s pure gorgeousness. “Fêtes” is more boisterous and nervous but just as vague, and when the marching festivities of the title enter the picture frame, it’s still blurry.
“Sirènes” includes a women’s chorus, singing wordless oos and ahs. A few choristers, grouped in a subsection of sopranos, wore masks. If I were to take a guess, that’s probably where the Covid-positive singer is normally stationed. It was a potent visual reminder that the sirens from mythology lull their unsuspecting (or careless) victims to their demise, the same deadly tactic used by the coronavirus itself. Pushing those thoughts aside, the music’s ebb and flow, the shimmer and stillness, was often breathtakingly beautiful.
The program booklet tells us that Runnicles was the most recent conductor to lead Debussy’s Nocturnes (in 2017) and also Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem (in 2013). With the ASO, he’s taken ownership of this standard repertoire.
After intermission the full ASO Chorus took the stage for the gentle, impressionistic Requiem, with the text drawn from the Catholic Latin Mass. Runnicles played the opening Introit and Kyrie movements as naïve and dreamy — childlike and open-hearted in their innocence. In the third section, we get into the punishments of hell, leading into the roaring cries of “Libera eas de ore leonis” (“Deliver them from the lion’s mouth”). The chorus at full power, prepared by the brilliant chorus director Norman Mackenzie, remains a thing of wonder, a tsunami force. You are helpless from being submerged in all that glorious sound, all beautifully blended without a hint of shrillness, and with precise articulation.
The two solo singers, at the front of the stage, have small parts but made a huge impression. Baritone Douglas Williams sang in strong-oak tones, wide and steady. For this sacred church music, in the Libera me movement, with the words “Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo” (“I am made to tremble, and I am afraid”) he acted his lines as much as sang them, a compelling presence.
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, a voice of rare depth and charisma, only sings in one short movement, the famous Pie Jesu. With warm, bronzed, generous tones, she made everyone in the audience seem to hold their breath for those three minutes, perhaps the loveliest moments on the program.
The concert will repeat at Symphony Hall Saturday evening.
