“Easter Oratorio” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Recommended *** In honor of Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week, Music of the Baroque presented a competently delightful, delightfully competent concert on Sunday, April 10th, at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, in Skokie, which highlighted the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and religious music by his contemporaries.

The featured event was Bach’s “Easter Oratorio, BWV 249”, starring four vocalists: soprano Yulia Van Doren, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong, tenor James Gilchrist, and baritone/base Michael Sumuel, together with the Music of the Baroque orchestra and choir. What was most remarkable about the performance of the oratorio were the especially strong voices of DeShong and Sumuel, the oboe solos by Anne Bach and the flute solos by Mary Stolper which accompanied Van Doren’s operatic soprano. In addition to singing in German during the oratorio, the multilingual Gilchrist sang tenor in two motets during the first half of the concert. These were Henry Purcell’s “An Evening Hymn” (sung in English) and Dieterich Buxtehude’s “Quemadmodum desiderat cervus” (sung in Latin). I particularly liked the meaning behind the Latin words, taken from Psalm 42, having to do with thirst and satisfaction, as well as Buxtehude’s repeating bass line that musically merges the two.

The program started out with Bach’s “Sinfonia in D Major, BWV 1045, with concertmaster Kathleen Brauer on violin. Nerves seemed to play a role at the beginning of the evening. Conductor Dame Jane Glover seemed to anticipate what the orchestra would do next and her direction showed it; hence Brauer’s performance seemed a bit rushed, and everyone seemed a bit out of sync. Bach’s hallmark methodical beat was often absent from this opening number. Things calmed down rhythmically during the second number Bach’s “‘Komm, Jesu, komm’ BWV 229” when the MOB choir came to the fore. A shoutout should be made to Benjamin Rivera, who serves as the chorus director.

On a very different note, I enjoyed seeing the configurations and reconfigurations of the orchestra to match the number of singers. For example, during “Komm, Jesu, komm”, there were only four instruments accompanying the choir: the theorbo, two cellos, and the organ. Supertitles projected above the orchestra and choir allowed the audience to understand the words in translation, although there were a few spots where I felt that there could have been a few more captions. Dame Glover also played the harpsichord at times throughout, which added to the performance and mellowed it out. It was particularly during the last half of the “Easter Oratorio” when I felt that the singers, the musicians, and the conductor had finally blended well together and had gotten into “the zone.” Therefore, when the concert ended, I didn’t really want it to end—because now I was in “the zone” myself. A very short encore might have been in order, as it turned out to be a rather early evening.

In sum, while I especially enjoyed the musical bookends of Bach, I felt the performance as a whole needed to be more precise and vigorous. It was definitely respectable but could have been more thrilling.

“Easter Oratorio” was performed at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Boulevard, in Skokie, on Sunday, April 10, 2022, to be followed on Monday, April 11th by a performance at the Harris Theater, in Millennium Park, 205 W. Randolph Drive, in Chicago. The concerts start at 7:30 p.m.

For more information about this and future performances of Music of the Baroque, including times, dates, and locations, please go to: https://www.baroque.org/.

Music of the Baroque is a resident company of the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. To learn more about the venue, their future offerings, and ticket prices, visit: https://northshorecenter.org/.

To learn more about the Harris Theater, their future offerings, and ticket prices, go to: https://www.harristheaterchicago.org/.

These performing arts venues take part in a unified policy requiring patrons to present proof of full COVID-19 vaccination and an identification card. Properly worn face masks are required for all patrons regardless of vaccination status. For further information about COVID protocols at the various venues, visit: https://www.baroque.org/2022faq. Note that all these requirements are subject to change at any moment, depending on COVID rates in the community.