GOOD NEWS: Bach lives. New Carmel Bach Festival music director Paul Goodwin has revived the old wig’s youthful ardor, in sharp contrast to the festival’s previous conductor, Bruno Weil, who much preferred the latter-day classical Austrians, like Haydn and Beethoven.
Inevitably, the principal test would be one of Bach’s two extant passion oratorios. As heard—and seen—Sunday afternoon at Carmel’s Sunset Center, Goodwin plunged into the drama of the St. John Passion and kept it vividly in focus throughout. Moreover, he made sure it was played out in human terms, as a semistaged tragedy.
Goodman started by dispensing with all the usual ceremonial trappings that inherently erect a barrier between the actual drama onstage and its witnesses in the hall. The arriving audience observed a motley crowd sitting, chatting quietly and milling about the stage, all dressed in casual attire, shirts untucked, jeans without belts, Birkenstocks, running shoes. … As the hour approached, this rag-tag morphed into a small orchestra, on one side of the stage, and chorus opposite. Then one of its members suddenly became Paul Goodwin, and the orchestra launched itself with pulsing urgency while the chorus nearly shouted its opening cry to the Lord himself, Herr!, repeated twice more, like stabs of pain.
This vitality carried the drama. The narrator (called Evangelist) all the character parts (Jesus, Pilate, et al.) and the quartet of aria singers sang from memory, and moved about the stage as actors in a play. Andrew Megill’s crack choristers served two functions: rowdy crowd on one hand and the congregation of the faithful on the other.
As Evangelist, tenor Rufus Muller sounded a bit hoarse (he has the most to sing by far) but acted his role with uncommon authority. Tight and dutiful early on, the solo quartet, Kendra Colton, Daniel Taylor, Matthew Anderson and Alexander Dobson loosened up and gained expression as the performance unfolded.
The production will repeat Sunday, July 24, at 2:30pm. While this notice only speaks to it, the 74th Carmel Bach Festival offers plentiful and wide-ranging programming, through July 30. Goodman also conducts more Bach along with Corigliano, Handel and Haydn on Monday, and Vaughan Williams and Beethoven on Friday. New festival concertmaster, Peter Hanson, leads the strings on Monday. Megill celebrates St. Cecelia at Carmel Mission on Wednesday. Pianist Stephen Prutsman plays Bach and jazz on Thursday. Myriad recitals complement the above.
Carmel Bach Festival
Runs through July 30