WAR REQUIEM
Esplanade Concert Hall
Friday (5 April 2013 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 8 April 2013 with the title "Britten's blockbuster".
Once
in several years comes a momentous musical event that deserves to be called a
blockbuster. In 2004, it was Mahler’s Symphony
of a Thousand performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and its
associated choirs under Music Director Shui Lan. This year being the centenary
of Benjamin Britten’s birth, his War
Requiem took the honour.
Conceived
for the 1962 consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral beside the bombed ruins
of its predecessor, this was the pacifist English composer’s statement on the pity
of war and a hope for reconciliation. Combining the Roman Catholic requiem mass
with selected poems by First World War poet Wilfred Owen (above), it ran for a
heart-rending 90 minutes that was both poignant and highly charged.
Seated
for a change in Circle Three, this reviewer was afforded a celestial vista of
the epic (below); three soloists, two orchestras, over 200 choristers in the gallery,
and the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir perched high up in the left wing of
Circle Two. Sonic and visual spectaculars were the very reason why this hall
was built.
The
voices of the three singers Elena Zelenskaya, Barry Banks and Detlef Roth (each
matching the same nations represented by Britten’s original cast of Galina
Vishnevskaya, Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau) wafted naturally and
unimpeded to the upper reaches, as clear as crystal. Just as impressive were
the children, conducted by Wong Lai Foon with Shane Thio as organ accompanist,
who were impeccable in deportment and intonation for their small but important
part,
The
main drama took place on stage, where two separate groups were pitted in the
cut and thrust of the musical exchange. Lim Yau led the chamber orchestra that
accompanied the male soloists singing the Owen poems, while Shui Lan helmed the
main body, chorus and soprano for the Latin liturgy. Two distinct works were running
in parallel, but inextricably joined by Britten’s seamless welding of the
musical narrative.
There
were many high points, including the mounting vehemence in Dies Irae, splendidly driven by the four choirs augmented by voices
from the Shanghai Opera, and the Abraham episode where the father slew not only
Isaac, but “half the seed of Europe, one by one.” What sort of loving God callously
kills his own children? If one seeks scepticism in a sacred work, here it is served
cold by the atheist composer.
This
was emphatically not a requiem in praise of God and his eternal kingdom, but
one seeking deliverance, dressed up with brassy splendour in the Hosanna in Excelsis, and the final irony
of the two enemy soldiers united peacefully in deathly repose, eloquently
delivered in the duet by Banks and Roth in Libera
Me.
This
Singapore premiere of a 20th century
classic by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra was an artistic triumph from start
to finish, and a moving experience for all involved. It was also accomplished
outside of the Singapore Arts Festival, setting a new bar for that institution that
formerly presented musical blockbusters to emulate. And would it have been too
much to ask for enough programme booklets be printed so that all those who
attended have a souvenir to remember it by?
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