Hallelujah, Amen, May Festival 2009

Cincinnati Music Hall

If you’re on Facebook (or not), you may know that an attempt is being made, right here in Cincinnati, to assemble the world’s largest Hallelujah Chorus (Handel’s “Messiah”).
    Application has been accepted by the Guinness Book of World Records for www.hallelujahcincinnati.com.
     The May Festival tries as hard as it can every year after the final concert, when everyone in 3,500-seat Music Hall joins the May Festival Chorus in singing Handel’s “Hallelujah” (if anyone knows exactly when this tradition began, please let MusicinCincinnati.com know).
   There’ll be even more "Hallelujahs" this year.  The next-to-last concert, set for 8 p.m. May 29 at Music Hall, is billed as “Hallelujah” night, with not one by two choruses by Handel, “Hallelujah, Amen” from “Judas Maccabaeus” and “Hallelujah” from “Messiah,” plus the “Hallelujah” chorus from Beethoven’s “Christ on the Mount of Olives.”
   Hallelujah!

James Conlon

Also on the concert, to be led by James Conlon, celebrating his 30th anniversary as May Festival music director, is Bach’s Magnificat.   Tapping pagan roots will be excerpts from Schubert’s “Rosamunde” and Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” plus Mendelssohn’s “The First Walpurgis Night.”
   Though the actual play “Rosamunde” is lost, the two choruses to be heard are about the joys of spring, including frolicking shepherds and shepherdesses.  Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is all about fairies in an enchanted wood and Mendelssohn’s magical music brings them to life like no one short of the Bard himself.  You will hear “You Spotted Snakes” from Act II, scene 3, and ”Through This House Give Glimmering Light” from the Finale.  Mendelssohn’s “The First Walpurgis Night” is about Druidic rites and the scare they put into Christians who drew close enough to observe.
   Saturday night’s May Festival finale (May 30) presents Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 (“Symphony of a Thousand”) with, if not actually 1,000, close to half of that.  Joining the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (92) will be the May Festival Chorus (131), Cleveland Orchestra Chorus (136), Cincinnati Children’s Choir Bel Canto Choir (83), eight soloists and one conductor (Conlon).  Robert Porco is director of both the May Festival and Cleveland Orchestra Choruses.  Robyn Lana directs the Cincinnati Children’s Choir. 
   Music Hall’s timbers will ring, as they always do when works of such scale are performed there.  Mahler’s 8th Symphony is in two parts.   The first is a setting of the Latin hymn “Veni Creator Spiritus.”  Part II is a concert version of the final act of Goethe’s “Faust.”  Vocal soloists include Bridgett Hooks (soprano I, Magna Peccatrix), Ellie Dehn (soprano II, Una poenitentium), Hana Park (soprano III, Mater gloriosa), Catherine Keen (alto I, Mulier Samaritana), Jill Grove (alto II, Maria Aegyptica), Rodrick Dixon (tenor, Doctor Marianus), James Johnson (bass-baritone, Pater ecstaticus) and James Creswell (bass, Pater profundus).
   Music Hall’s new infrared assistive listening system, made possible by a donation from the Bahmann Foundation, may not be necessary, but if you’d like a headset to tune into it, they are available free in the coat check area in the Music Hall lobby.
   Tickets for the concerts are $12-$86, available by calling (513) 381-3300, at the Music Hall box office, or visit www.mayfestival.com

Daniel Maimone as Mr. Owen, Sonia Rodriguez Bermejo as A Lady with a Mirror/Operetta Singer (photo Adam Moser)

Also on the weekend music calendar is “Postcard from Morocco” by Dominick Argento, concluding work on the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s 2008-09 Studio Opera Series.  Performances are 8 p.m. May 29 and 30, 2:30 p.m. Sunday May 31 in Cohen Family Studio Theater at CCM.
   Argento's 1971 opera about a group of travelers at a train station and the “baggage” they are carrying will be directed by distinguished artist in residence Nicholas Muni.  Karl Shymanovitz will conduct the CafeMomus Ensemble.  Admission is free, but reservations are required.  Call (513) 556-4183.