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Very Verdi
Chorus pro Musica does Macbeth proud

BY LLOYD SCHWARTZ

A decade ago, when Jeffrey Rink became music director of Chorus pro Musica, who’d have guessed he’d become Boston’s pre-eminent Verdi conductor? But his concert version of Otello last year was thrilling. So why not more Verdi, in this centennial year of the composer’s death, and why not more Verdi Shakespeare? Why not Macbeth?

Written in 1887, Otello was Verdi’s penultimate opera and one of his supreme masterpieces. Macbeth, his first attempt at Shakespeare, premiered in 1847; in 1865, he overhauled it considerably for a Paris revival, though he never quite made it stylistically coherent. “La luce langue” (Shakespeare’s “Light thickens”), an aria of atmospheric intensity he added in the second act for Lady Macbeth, is rich in unexpected modulations and subtle tone colors. And the new chorus of exiled Scots at the beginning of act four is more sophisticated and moving than any of the choral work in his original conception (vigorous choruses for bevies of witches, a crowd of messengers, and gangs of assassins). Still, the first duet for Macbeth and Banquo, Macbeth’s dagger aria, the drinking song with which Lady M covers up Macbeth’s guilty hallucinations after Banquo’s murder, and her heartbreaking Sleepwalking Scene show Verdi already working at his highest level. In an exciting performance, stylistic discrepancies are the last thing an audience minds.

And Rink provided excitement. The chorus was splendid (witches so convincing they didn’t have to cackle, look like hags, or do grotesque dances, as they invariably do in full stagings). So was the orchestra, from the flickers of lightning flashing from Iva Milch’s piccolo and Julia Scolnik’s flute down to the sub-basement growls of Randall Montgomery’s melancholy tuba and the ominous rumblings of Jeffrey Fischer’s timpani. Rink’s decisions about tempo were impeccable — invigorating without being rushed, brooding without dragging, and always dramatic. At big climaxes, the on-stage orchestra overwhelmed some of the singers and at least one member of the Jordan Hall audience. But Rink also provided wide dynamic variety, so there was more than just pumping iron. Besides, in early Verdi, you don’t want anyone to hold back.

The cast was all new to me. Baritone Jason Stearns, whose home base seems to be DC, sang the title role with a ringing yet elegant voice that never tired. He has a mobile face and a sympathetic personality, crucial for Macbeth, though he moved — and posed — more like an opera singer than a Scottish warrior, one leg always in front of the other, except in his duets with the remarkable Linda Roark-Strummer’s Lady M. Roark-Strummer, from Tulsa, sings leading roles with the Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala, the Verona Arena, and the New York City Opera, and her grand-opera voice, almost too big for this venue, sailed easily over orchestra and chorus during Verdi’s biggest climaxes. Actually, Verdi said he would rather Lady Macbeth “didn’t sing at all.” He wanted a voice “rough, hollow, and stifled,” a voice that “should have something devilish.” Roark-Strummer doesn’t have a traditionally glamorous tone, and she tended to go sharp on her loud high notes. But her voice has stunning power, and she used it with such dramatic intelligence, such palpable irony, you didn’t have to know Italian to know what she was singing about. Her movement was always in character, from summoning up the demons in her first aria to scrubbing her hands (perhaps to excess) in the Sleepwalking aria. In “La luce langue,” she showed us the seeds of her later psychological deterioration. She also looked the other singers right in the eye, never at the audience or the conductor. That’s surely why Stearns was so much more convincing when he was with her.

Bass Philip Candilis, a UMass physician ethicist, made a sturdy and troubled Banquo, though his first-act duet with Macbeth was more authoritative than his second-act aria. Young Armenian tenor Yegishe Manucharyan sang the small part of Malcolm better than wavering veteran Neapolitan tenor Vittorio Marciano sang Macduff, Macbeth’s other tenor role. Baritone Lee Poulis (the doctor) and soprano Kathryn Zeager (a lady-in-waiting) stood out among the nameless characters. All the soloists sang from memory — and what a difference that makes.

Rink took three full intermissions, giving the voices some welcome rest, and he provided a clear sense of Verdi’s dramatic and musical design. Too bad all this artistic thoughtfulness and effort went into a single and not especially well-attended performance of this ambitious, enjoyable work that doesn’t get done often enough.

Issue Date: June 7 - 14, 2001