Both Hill church weekend concerts magnificent

Chestnut Hill was the center of the region’s period instruments movement this past weekend. Two of Greater Philadelphia’s leading ensembles specializing in the music of earlier styles played on the instruments of those epochs gave performances in two of Chestnut Hill’s most prominent churches.

Proving the breadth and depth of both the local period instruments scene and the variety of those of Chestnut Hill’s churches that can be employed as concert venues, the two programs — thought similar in many ways — were different in equal measure. And both drew full houses.

Piffaro, the Renaissance Wind Band, presented “A Festive Vespers: Dresden 1620” in the markedly uncluttered sanctuary of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. The Philomel Baroque Orchestra chose the explosion of color found inside the Norman revival sanctuary of the Episcopal Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for its Sunday evening rendition of “Franklin’s London.”

Both ensembles’ programs were graced with guest artists. Piffaro was joined by the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church, a Jesuit parish located on Manhattan’s Park Avenue. Philomel opened its musical arms to soprano Laura Heimes and organist Peter Sykes. In both cases, the programs adhered to a “theme” that permitted sufficient room for maneuvering to avoid a dulling sameness. Both offered beautiful music played and sung beautifully.

Piffaro’s was the more unusual of the two programs. Its theme sustained a line of development that placed each selection within the context of the liturgical continuum of a Lutheran Vesper’s service as it would have been experienced by the citizens of Dresden. The ancient city was located among the northern principalities that proclaimed the Protestant faith following the settlement of the Thirty Years War. The roster of scores performed featured pieces by Michael Praetorius, Heinrich Schutz and Samuel Scheidt and offered a glimpse into the pre-Bach world of German late Renaissance and early baroque music.

Philomel’s program revived the musical ambience of London during Benjamin Franklin’s two stays in the English capital city prior to the outbreak of the American War of Independence. The local and national founding father, whose tercentenary we’re now celebrating, was a devoted amateur musician who took in London’s musical delights with relish. Philomel programmed well known music by well known composers as well as rarely heard scores penned by little known musicians. Yet it all came together not just as an interesting musical history lesson, but as a compelling musical event.

Since only a few Catholic parishes throughout all of America support a professional or even semi-professional choir singing the great works of the Catholic Church’s 2000-year-old musical patrimony, hearing the Choir of St. Ignatius Loyola was a particular treat for a longtime church musician such as myself. Under the direction of Kent Tritle, the choir sang with tight ensemble, secure pitch and admirable balance. Its overall tone, however, lacked brightness at the top, the kind of textural clarity one hears from the Tallis Scholars, for instance, or from a fine choir of men and boys, such as that from Westminster Catholic Cathedral in London. To my ears, the choirs of both St. Clement’s and St. Mark’s Episcopal Churches in center city Philadelphia are more impressive musical ensembles.

Soloists Heimes and Sykes enhanced Philomel’s concert. Heimes was heard to delightful advantage in works by Chilcot, Arne, Jackson, Linley and Handel. She sang with tonal purity, rhythmic vitality, technical agility and an engagingly light yet broad stroke of humor.

THE MAGIC FLUTE

The Curtis Opera Theater opened its 2005-06 season with a production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute that was persistently inconsistent yet ultimately satisfying. Performed in the Prince Music Theater this past weekend, there were elements of the mounting that either succumbed to the weaknesses of the work itself, or to the challenges of casting young singers in difficult roles, but that met those challenges and transcended those weaknesses.

Of all Mozart’s major operas, The Magic Flute is the one that least appeals to me. Whereas the young genius responded to the Italian libretti of Don Giovanni, Cosi fanTtutti, L eNnozza di Figaro and even La Clemenza di Tito with peerlessly molded melodies, this response to Emmanuel Schikaneder’s German libretto for The Magic Flute borders on the four-square and stodgy.

While Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretti elicited towering drama, depth of character portrayal and soaring spiritual wisdom, Mozart gave us a black-and-white score that sadly but aptly mirrors the one-dimensional idiocy that passed for Schikaneder’s purported rendering of Masonic philosophy. It all comes together in a poisonous brew of bigoted nonsense.

Because of these troubling threats to theatrical viability, The Magic Flute has been known to drive stage directors beyond distraction into downright lunacy. While the normal choice of locale for this opera without a legitimate place on earth is an ancient Egypt nowhere near as interesting or authentic as 20th Century Fox’s Cleopatra, I’ve seen The Magic Flute staged in as exotic a place as the Amazon rainforest or as farfetched a spot as somewhere in outer space. Curtis’ Emma Griffin restrained herself and chose the operatic Ottoman Empire of Mozart’s own Abduction from the Seraglio.

It was a wise decision. David Zinn’s simple yet functional set design, Meredith Palin’s costumes and Mark Barton’s lighting fell into line for a presentation that never got in its own way with a fussiness of “look” that might take away the focus of attention from the young singers of Curtis’ opera department. Griffin could have energized her Friday night cast with a tad more vitality, but her straightforward approach allowed certain of those singers to blossom in their roles even though Rossen Milanov’s conducting lacked timbral bite.

Chief among these was tenor Dominic Armstrong as Tamino, the prince whose escape from a monster sets in motion the search for Truth that underlies the plot of The Magic Flute. Although he took more than a few minutes to warm up vocally, once he did so he revealed a young voice not merely admirable for its strength and security but one that impressed with its promise of development.

Baritone Nathan Bachhuber made a delightful Papageno, the cowardly yet wily bird-catcher who becomes Tamino’s unwilling companion. If Papageno’s dreams are more earthbound than Tamino’s high-flying gibberish, Bachhuber’s seamless singing and rubbery buffoonery made them nonetheless appealing.