Music
Helensburgh Oratorio Choir
Helensburgh Parish Church
Keith Bruce, three stars
THE front row of the tenors of Helensburgh Oratorio Choir would concede that they are not in the first flush of youth, but the gentlemen are still valuably musically accurate when their contribution to the choral sound is at its most exposed – and that hardest-to-fill section is often the litmus test for any chorus.
They had a fine model on Sunday night in soloist Elgan Llyr Thomas, one of a quartet of soloists with pedigrees including Scottish Opera engagements whose involvement was a benefit of having as your chorus master Jonathan Swinard, who fills the same role with the national company and is now also assuming musical directorship of its youth operation.
That latter responsibility was reflected here in the involvement of three local schools – Arrochar, Cardross and Lomond – singing the three-part angelic contribution to Part Two which was echoed by the adult choir’s “He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps”.
Other angels of the evening were sung by mezzo Sioned Gwen Davies, in a radical change of role from her performance as the lustful stewardess in Jonathan Dove’s Flight – and who will shortly be seen as Olga in Eugene Onegin – and by soprano Eleanor Dennis, Contessa in Scottish Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro.
Four of the young people – Clemy Perratt, Gregor Stewart, Taylor Neil, and Marianne Ridland – also had their solo moments giving voice to The Youth, Elisha, in Part One in exchanges with former Scottish Opera company principal and audience favourite Roland Wood, whose majestic baritone was perfectly suited to the title role.
His Part Two plea in the wilderness, It Is Enough, is one of few real showpieces in a work that is more a sequence of “opera scenes”, and whose long and vexed gestation probably accounts for weaknesses in the libretto and narrative line, its popularity notwithstanding. With a scratch orchestra that included well known musicians alongside younger players, some string intonation issues in that aria and the overture were minor cavils.
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