The recent havoc wrought by bad weather threatened two performances of Handel’s Messiah at Seville’s Teatro della Maestranza.
The Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla was to be conducted by Briton Robert King, who with all four soloists and the King’s Consort founded by this director were to travel to Seville from Heathrow on December 20.
The soprano soloist was our own Claire Debono. They spent all day at the airport and were only flown out on the next day, not getting to Seville before evening.
The Seville performances were labelled as conciertos particpativos. This meant that more than one choir would be taking part, and as for the choruses, those in the audience who knew them could sing along too.
The Maestranza was sold out, as it had been for the first performance. Apart from the King’s Consort there were five choirs from Seville or close by, namely the Coro del Ateneo de Sevilla, Coro de la Sociedad Musical de Sevilla, Camerata Vocal Concertante from Huelva, Coro de la Universidad de Huelva and the Orfeón Portuense from Santa Maria de Cádiz.
Some of the choruses were sung by just the King’s Consort but most were sung by what must have been a combined chorus of 250 singers.
Instead of British alto Hilary Summers, Swiss counter-tenor Terry Wey was to step in. The other male soloists, both British, were tenor Joshua Ellicott and bass David Wilson-Johnson.
It was a thrilling performance and as the Messiah has often been held to be a specially inspired composition, it was little wonder some of that inspiration must have also rubbed off on King’s direction, which was superb.
He has the work to his fingertips and gets the best out of all the forces at his command. When facing the public to direct the combined choruses he even turned the pages of his score without even turning back.
The choruses were crisp and well-shaped, and diction was very good. The four soloists came in for a lot of praise.
Both then and after the performance no praise seemed to be enough for Debono’s beautiful, clear, limpid and very agile voice.
Wilson-Johnson shared these high plaudits for his robust performance, which had every iota of authoritativeness, precision, as well as the ability to convey contrasting moments of awe and tenderness.
Wey sang with conviction, but in the first half his voice did not carry all that well, improving greatly as he went along. Ellicott had the ideal voice for the part and sang very well.
As could be expected, the Hallelujah chorus produced great enthusiasm in the audience and it was no wonder that it was encored after the work’s finely wrought magnificent Amen fugue brought the oratorio to a very exciting end.
Debono has been away from Malta for 11 years now, singing curiously enough, not so much in the UK where she lives but on mainland Europe and several times in North America as well. It has been a rather long time since she last sang in Malta and she would love to do that again. One hopes it will not be very long before Maltese music lovers hear this other gem of a vocal export of ours.
Claire Debono will take on the role of Adina in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore in St Etienne and Rouen, France, and will sing a recital of Liszt lieder at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels in February.