WSO delivers the food of love in heartfelt concert

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This article was published 11/02/2024 (602 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra wore its heart on its sleeve Saturday night as it presented a program loosely inspired by St. Valentine’s Day right around the corner.

The latest offering in the WSO’s ongoing Saturday Classics series, titled Classical Romance: Beethoven and Mozart, marked the local professional debut of internationally renowned conductor Earl Lee.

The Korean Canadian artist last appeared on this podium during the WSO’s 2017/18 Emerging Canadian Conductors Showcase; he currently serves as music director of the Ann Arbor Symphony and assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The 110-minute program (including intermission) also highlighted the WSO debut of Niagara Falls-raised, U.K.-based soprano Sarah Dufresne, with a pair of Mozart selections ideally suited to her exquisitely clear, bell-like vocals and innate lyricism.

She immediately infused her first aria, Ach, ich fuhl’s from Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) with heartfelt sentiment, as her character Pamina mourns the apparent loss of her beloved Prince Tamino.

It also displayed her expressive acting skills, which allowed her to immediately inhabit her character sans costumes, props, sets or even other cast mates sharing the stage with her. Performing without the barrier of a music stand — always tricky for soloists, and especially for singers, whose body is their instrument — would have made this resonate even more.

Exsultate jubilate, K. 165, a religious motet that has been, in essence, a showcase for multitudes of sopranos since it was penned by the Wunderkind in 1773, provided further taste of Dufresne’s artistry. She soared through her opening Exsultate, jubilate: Allegro, including dazzling colouratura, before delivering an effortless recitativo, Fulget amica dies, performed with a spot-on continuo.

Lee’s sensitive direction matched her note for note, the maestro using his hands to sculpt sound from the players during penultimate movement, Tu virginum corona: Andante, which displayed the rainbow spectrum of the singer’s tonal colours.

Then it was time for more fireworks with the joyous finale, Alleluja: Allegro, frequently performed as a stand-alone showstopper. This should burst out of the gate, and an oddly restrained choice of tempo did not always allow its electricity to spark, despite more effervescent colouratura passages by Dufresne that popped like champagne.

However, her ringing high notes, flawless intonation and nuanced dynamic palette, including shading pianissimos in her uppermost range, rightfully earned her a standing ovation, leading to a final encore from Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, a.k.a. the Pastorale, hasn’t been heard on this stage since 2008. Lee infused the programmatic, five-movement work with dreamy poetry, although more temperament and bite — this is still Beethoven, after all — would have provided greater overall contrasts.

Nevertheless, the opening movement, colourfully subtitled Awakening of Serene Impressions on Arriving in the Country, radiated with sunny spirits, while Scene by the brook unfolded like a stroll through the countryside, capped by its cadenza of imitative nightingale, quail and cuckoo bird calls, courtesy of the WSO’s fine winds.

Jolly Gathering of Country Folk brought greater, well, jolly energy, performed with the rollicking gusto of a village dance, before Thunderstorm, fuelled by bone-chilling brass attacks, chromatic string runs and thundering timpani rolls, enthralled, beore returning to a peaceful finale, Shepherd’s Hymn and Thankful Feelings after the Storm.

One of the WSO’s many fortes is its legacy of introducing new composers and their works to local audiences, whether through its annual Winnipeg New Music Festival, which recently wrapped up, or through regular seasonal programming. This concert proved no exception.

This evening opened with American composer Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, written for string orchestra. It crackled with vitality, including snap pizzicati in the lower strings, led with dynamic force by Lee.

A second Manitoba première, Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers — based on the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and inspired by a quote in the composer’s personal notebook about the vagaries of life — similarly bristled with its tightly packed orchestration.

A few moments of repose were provided by principal cellist Yuri Hooker’s lyrical solo, quickly subsumed by pounding timpani strikes, with the compelling work, originally intended to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in the ill-fated pandemic year of 2020, garnering another standing ovation by the enthusiastic crowd of 1,825.

holly.harris@shaw.ca